sharing a room with an unknown colleague on a business trip-acceptable??

[silvermum]

How would you feel if your boss expected you to share a room on a business trip with a colleague you know by sight and have perhaps exchanged a few words with over the years but otherwise don't know at all?
I work for a multi national company, in a seniorish position. I have to attend two conferences in October, stretching over two weeks (with a few nights at home in between.)
This is part of my job, and always has been, but this year, for the first time - and with no apology or warning - they expect me to share a hotel room with a (female)stranger.
I feel angry and humiliated. I've raised it with the managing editor, who (irrelevantly) pointed out that I didn't attend the conferences last year. That's because i had a six week old baby ! I have always had a good relationship with the bosses and recently asked for - and got- a decent payrise. Shared experiences/advice, anyone? AIBU?

No way on earth would I share a room. I go away for work from time to time and under no circumstances would I share a room.

Quite aside from any privacy issues - what if one person snores? Or wants to read or watch telly later than the other? Or needs to make a phone call home?

Ridiculous that you should be expected to imo. I have never heard of this happening, ever.

Not acceptable. I work in event managagement and organise events/conferences for many blue chip companies and IT IS NOT sommon practice for delegates to share, certainly not at a senior level.

Likely to be a cost saving experience I would think.

Thanks for the responses. I know they're not asking the guy who is one rung above me on the ladder to share; all the others who are sharing are below me on the ladder. There's only one person of my grade going.
it's never happened before. I'll be working very long hours (until 1am/2am each day) including over two weekends - another reason i think it's a total joke. Good suggestion to book another hotel and put it on expenses...at the moment i've raised my concerns in a measured but firm way. she initially reacted very defensively, but i didn't back down.
She has now sent me an email saying she "hears what I am saying" and will "see what she can do about it" - without giving me any great cause for optimism that she will actually sort it.
My plan is to wait and see where we are in a weeks time - then, if no result, take things up a notch. (eg consult our union.)
I have worked for three similar companies, and had to attend the conferences for the last six years - never once been expected to share.

I have done this on several occasions in previous jobs. Big multinational IT company. Even senior directors were epecpted to share rooms on conferances, with a total disregard to whether colleagues were at higher or lower level, whether Paris, Munich or Dubai.
Male colleagues were sharing with males, and females with females.

Conferences are also about team building, and rooming in together was another way of doing that.

I dont think the rooming in had anything to do with a couple of collegues skinnydipping in the pool at night, on one conference....

I'd be interested to know what the law would say on this.

i think it is very unaccptable - as i said earlier - and thinking more about it - they wouldn't make you share a room with a man would they? so by making you share with a woman, they are being sexist? IYKWIM? just a thought??

Not really acceptable but I've had to do it once because of a mix up with the room bookings (hotel's fault I think) and it was ok in the end. Maybe that's because the colleague was nice and had a sense of humour. I dread to think what it would've been like if she'd been a miserable old goat.

It is not an acceptable way to save money.

I am really surprised you dont think it is ok!

I have shared with someone i didn't know once, but that was on slimming world training days where we had to pay for the hotel, so it was mutually agreed, we shared petrol to Derby from SWales too - more of a money saving thing really and i was much younger!
x

I only ever shared with female friends, and then once I met my husband through work, shared with him - if he was attending the same event.

There were some amusing stories from some of the men that were sharing with each other. After an evening of drinking one chap woke up in the night to find his roomate having a wee in the chair as he had apparently mistaken it for the toilet.

Another returned to his room to find his roomate lying comatose on his bed (as in the wrong bed) starkers and face up! .

Oh dear God, that's unacceptable. I worked for several blue chips and no one was expected to share! Even the juniors.

At all the comapanies I worked, the ethos was that if the company expected you to be away from home on company business then you should be afforded a level of luxury and comfort that was greater than that at home. Ergo, you don't share your bedroom with a strange female at home so you should not be expected to do it on company business.

Hope you get it sorted out as it would send me hopping mad.

There is not a hope in hell that I would share with a stranger/acquaintance.

I don't want to smell someone else's fart in the middle of the night, nor have her see my odd, umatched but comfortable collection of underwear.

If you are working hard during a long day, you are entitled to relax in privacy at the end of it, and I believe that counts whether you are a junior rep or a company chairman.

I have never been asked to share, but remember in my first job stamping my foot about getting a room with en-suite bathroom, because "I don't have to walk down a draughty corridor to share a bathroom at home, I don't intend to do it for work".

I must say, we were in pretty luxurious rooms, more like small suites.

good point margoandjerry - i too would be really interested in what the law says on this - probably nothing! the colleague seems very nice but we will be keeping very different hours as she has a totally different remit to me. so where i will be coming back around 1am/2am, she may well be up all night, coming back to the hotel around 5am, and sleeping most of the day.
it would just be mega weird.
i am also a really bad insomniac - got prescribed sleeping pills which i do my best not to use - but i can say right now that there's no way i'll get even a half decent night's sleep under these circumstances. then how well will I be able to do the job?

it happens in the not-for-profit sector. but that's in part because we're over a barrel but also because we know the money would be better spent elsewhere so we don;t complain. We're over a barrel because the people who give money would complain at profligacy if staff refused to share rooms (how many times do you hear people whinge about money given to charities being spent on "administration").

I've come across it in not-for-profit before, for a conference, before I arrived at the organisation in question.

Apparently everyone made such a tremendous fuss that it didn't happen again.

I have to say I don't think it's acceptable, unless budgets really are on an absolute shoe string (which means business travel would already be limited I would think), and those involved agree to it. Certainly not ok to insist.

Law has nothing particular about to say about this for those interested.

i'd be prepared to share if we were a charity and there was another female i got on well with or something - but we are a big company with a multi million turnover! and i have no female colleagues in my department.
it's just embarrassing! at the underwear, clumsymum! couldn't agree more.

Good god no. What kind of companies would expect you to share? Pretty shoddy imo.

I go away a lot, work for a huge and very profitable multinational, there would be a great outcry if business travellers were expected to share.

It is quite interesting to see what other companyies do regarding business travel. We are allocated credit cards, and have to book flights, hotels rooms, travel etc ourselves using the company system. There are a selection of hotels to choose from, from cheap as chips travelodge types to Hiltons/Le Meridiens etc. You can choose what you like and are left to use your discretion. Everyone I know used Holiday Inn Expresses and the like (I am pretty sure someone would say something if you booked yourself into 5 star hotels all the time).

The same with flights, you can choose whatever airline you like. There is a blanket rule that everyone (including the most senior execs) flies economy for flights under 11 hours duration, for flights longer than that everyone is entitled to book business class.

It's a very good system and works well.

the company block books rooms for these conferences, and apparently there is a limited number of rooms per company. however, that would be the case every year, so cannot be the real reason i am being asked to share for the first time this year.
i'm sure it's their latest cost cutting initiative - a step too far in my opinion.

flowerybeanbag, I didn't think the law would say "no shared rooms" but I wondered if there might be a way to approach it from a human rights (right to privacy?) or a dignity at work perspective.

I know nothing about the law, as is obvious.

i was once asked to do this by my boss as cost cutting. I'd have hated it. We asked the dept administrator who laughed and booked separate rooms

my previous employer sent me to meetings in nottingham (from london) for 3 days/nights only when i arrived at the hotel did i find out i would be sharing with a girl from glasgow that i had never spoken to, i was 7 months pregnant at the time and got to the room to find the other person totally pissed, smoking in the bathroom.
i booked into my own room for the night (paid myself) and the following day made it quite clear how unacceptable this was.
they did apologise and pay for my room but i did have to kick up a fuss.

Yes.

I work for a big blue chip company & a couple of years ago we all went to stay at Center Parcs.

We all had to share rooms, mostly with people we didn't know.

Get over it or don't go

hatwoman I work for a large charity and we don't share rooms when we go away (twice last year). The rooms weren't at all luxurious, but we had them to ourselves!

I wouldn't go if I had to share