Sharing room on a work trip

[HandsFaceTeeth]

I’m going on a work trip that involves an overnight stay. On the original request form, I said I did not want to share a room and would happily pay the difference to have my own room. A recent email said that attendees would be sharing twin rooms in the hotel. I do not know anyone else attending. AIBU to not want to share a room with a stranger? I don’t even share a room when I go away with good friends!

That is a hill I would be prepared to die on. I wouldn't even have offered to pay the difference.
Your employers are proper bonkers. Safeguarding at an absolute minimum

Hell no, not a chance in hell would I do that. I’d refuse/list every reason under the sun why it wasn’t reasonable.

No way.

No no no no no.
They want you to go , they pay for a room for you alone.
The cheek of them.

No way. I absolutely refuse to share with colleagues. I might, at a push share with a colleague who k considered a friend but only if it was due to a shortage of rooms.

There is absolutely no chance I’d agree to this.

Another no from me. Absolutely not.

If they were insisting on shared rooms, I’d not go. My privacy outside of working hours is non negotiable.

Nope.

Absolute no from me too.

YANBU

Is this standard company policy or a new thing? Might be okay if you know the person but as you don't then it's a bit off

That’s shocking. I would not go

Yanbu. No way would I agree to share a room with a colleague.

Massive safeguarding issue. I would point blank refuse even if it was with a work colleague I know well and like.

I would refuse to go. This is madness.

No way I’d do this. Single room or I don’t go (and I wouldn’t pay the difference). Even if I know and like the colleague. It’s highly inappropriate.

But my company treats me like the professional adult that I am, not a student or child.

Absolutely not. No way would I be sharing.

No - we never, EVER, share rooms on work trips. You have a right to private time even on a work trip, and for colleagues not to become aware of medical issues, embarrassing snoring, bodily dignity, deal with the phone calls from home etc. It is very very poor treatment of employees to expect them to share in a professional setting.

I've worked in a couple of places where people have shared if it's a social trip (ski trips, sport tournaments, one night away booze ups). People have been paired with someone they are friends with. More awkward people /those without friends are usually just given there own room.

Ive never had to share a room if we were there to do actual work and would refuse that.

100% more eloquently said than I did

I’d like to add that the company is a huge, profitable multinational organisation. Other colleagues have raised their eyebrows at my insistence on a single room, saying that it’s just the way these trips work.

I’ve travelled a lot for work. There was only one person I would have shared a room with, and even then I would only have done it in an emergency - like the one night we got to our hotel very late in a town with no other hotel and they’d messed up their booking system and only had one room left. But even in that case I took the offer of the folding bed in the conference room rather than sleeping on the sofa bed in her room, and we knew each other well enough to get changed in front of each other

My mum was talking about sharing a room
with a colleague when she attended a medical conference of some kind ( probably 30 years ago). When I queried this she said it was the only way they would have been allowed to go by the GPs practice. Totally bonkers.

Nope! I can count on 3 fingers the number of people I’d be willing to share a room with and non of them are work colleagues! For the record it’s my husband, mum and cousin/ bestie!!

I'd go but not share. I'd pay for my own room if necessary.

Absolutely not, they shouldn't even be asking!

There's any number of legitimate reasons why someone wouldn't want to share a room - including that they just don't want to! And all sorts of reasons why as a company they shouldn't be asking people to share.

They're just asking for all sorts of problems with people's dignity and privacy, potential for accusations of misbehavior, disruption, or even theft!

Absolutely stupid in any number of ways.