Should Your Boss Be Allowed To Make You Share a Hotel Room With A Coworker?

When I was recently asked to attend a conference, I was not initially provided with all of the travel arrangement details. As a former employee and consultant to this company, I could have opted out of attending. It was only after I had committed and my conference fees were paid that I was told that I would be sharing a room with a former coworker. The business owner was aware that this employee and I were in constant conflict and didn’t mention her attendance nor the fact that we would be sleeping in the same room. I decided to try and make the best of it, however it was very awkward.

I was manning the conference booth while my coworker was on a lunch break and began venting my frustration to another vendor. She related to me that she had seriously injured her  â€œconference roommate” once, long ago. “I snore”, she said as she started to explain. “My coworker decided to get up in the middle of the night and sleep in the bathroom with the door closed to muffle the noise. Not realizing that she was sleeping on the bathroom floor, I got up to use the restroom and jammed the door right onto her head and caused a really horrible injury - and a lot of HR paperwork. It was terrible, but they never made me share a room with another person again.”

We started to discuss the money saving tactic of room sharing and how uncomfortable it can be to have to parade around in jammies with your coworker, possibly someone that you don’t know very well. Snoring is typically the main concern for most, but my main issue is perfume and airborne products that make my asthma flare up. I can then become the heavy breather and that is truly embarrassing. In addition to these things, preferences on television shows, music, or other past times that can cause disruption can be hard to navigate through. Private phone calls can’t be conducted in your room, so you head to the lobby without makeup in your nightshirt, yoga pants, and flip flops only to meet up with someone you have been trying to get a meeting with for weeks.

This last conference became particularly interesting when I returned to the hotel room at 11pm after having drinks with several conference goers. After several martinis, I carefully navigated up to the ninth floor and swiped my room key with no response. I reluctantly went back to the elevator and to the lobby to get a new key thinking that this would fix the issue. When the new key didn’t work, it was determined by the second trip to the front desk that I was dead-bolted out of the room. I stood there and visualized myself pounding on the door and waking up my already cranky roommate, only to have her open the door like a mother that locked out her partying child. As I turned away from the front desk and saw the party still in full swing, I decided that I might as well continue my evening. It was there that I was offered several additional places to stay. I accepted one and returned to the room in the morning to explain the situation, receiving an apology for the mistake. Later, acting in her typical “throw her under the bus” behavior that drove the wedge between us in the first place, my roomie could not help but to note to the business owner that I did not return to the room that night. I ran into him later that evening and he asked where I had stayed. Since my contract was for 8 hours a day, I told him that it was really none of his business since it was not anyone related to his company or potentially affiliated with him at all. I was irritated, to say the least.

Feeling that I should have never been put into this very uncomfortable situation just to save an $80 dollar a night hotel fee, I sent in my invoice with a notice that I would no longer be available to attend conferences on their behalf. I also noted that I felt deceived and that since it was very well known that I did not have a good relationship with the “roommate”, the company should have informed me of the situation and should not have forced us upon each other.

I would love to hear your story in the comments section about your epic fail while sharing a room with a coworker, or you opinion on this topic! Do you believe that room sharing is an acceptable cost savings method?