its not just a room, is it?

Back to work after a little tired weekend. We were off for an office offsite to Lonavala. This was a complete bonding offsite which required us to come and do some team activity. This always happens over the weekend. So we left on Friday evening for a three hour drive. We were put up at a resort that was high up on the hill. So at a point the big bus cannot go any further and one needs to get into a SUV or a smaller bus. The end location ended up being quite cool. It is quiet a scenic resort and there is nothing all around except other green hills. Lonavala is being developed like crazy with scores of Mumbai dwellers buying holiday homes in the hill station. The concept of buying a holiday home has really caught on in the last few years. Let’s see how it pans out and whether Lonavala will actually be a buzzing place (defeating the holiday home purpose) or be a desolate ghost town with unkempt and inhabited properties.
The resort we stayed was over multiple levels and okay rooms. More like a good three star property. It was pretty pricey and given the cheap guy I am, this might be the property I might only go free of cost. I wouldn’t pay 10 k per night (inclusive of meals) for something like this. Jasmine and I have learnt the fun of staying in cheap but nice, warm and comfy places. You might not get the great view out of your window when you get up but it might have lots of walks, a bench from where you get the view, or be close to the action in the city. No point paying for a travel and staying in a resort all day cooped up – enjoying the view!
I have been to many company offsites. They tend to be fun if you know the group you are travelling with. It’s most boring when you have joined in fresh and are supposed to let your hair down. After 6 years in the same firm I was pretty cool with the gang. As usual, the suff was all about pulling legs, going through with the activity, ending in a drunken disco party with all sorts of songs being played and all night card parties. Nothing too exciting but nothing so really boring. The only thing is that you end up missing your family. Nice place, nice hotel, good view but no family.
Hmmm. In offsites you normally get to share a room with some colleague of yours. There will always be two to a room. And normally you can’t decide who you would be sharing the room with. That is preordained by the human resources or whoever is organising the offsite. It is up to their great achieved wisdom, that no one can really decipher, who on earth will be sharing with whom. I don’t really blame them either. They have this task and I don’t really fault them, whichever logic they use. I would assume that rarely would lots be taken. It’s normally placed according to some hidden agenda. If it is cross functional bonding then it does make sense to mix the functions in the rooming lists. I personally believed that it would be pretty cool to mix seniority. The junior gets valuable interaction time with the senior and the senior gets a hands on update from a junior’s perspective. So many times such simple stuff is missing in offices.
But this bonding thing always had a catch. The senior guys get rooms all to themselves. Exclusive. I always found that funny. Rather brhaminical. Why would the senior get the room as single occupancy and the juniors need to bond with another? I hated the concept and I kind of might have been jealous of the guys. In any case I never recommended nor endorsed it. For me, my great example was once when we were in Goa and my room for the night wasn’t fixed. My big boss was put up at a five star venue where the event was happening. He asked me to spend the night with him in the room. That would have saved the company some money for sure. I think it was a nice gesture. Not too many CEOs I have seen do this. An exclusive room is something to treasure and relish like other privelges like cabins, office décor, the type of dustbin (true), the laptop or car or whatever. To top it, not is the room exclusive, it is also normally an upgraded room. Better showers, possibly a bath tub, a sitting area perhaps, or even a gallery. Anything to separate from the pelebs underneath.
So this time around when we arrived I rushed in to the reception on whom would I be sharing the room with a bad drunk who snores at night could be disaster to your sleeping plans. As I made it through the crowd which was doing the same, checking the rooming list and calling out to their partners, I asked for my room number and partner. Voila – sir, this is your room. Ya, with whom am I sharing. Whoops. Single occupancy. Hah! I am a senior ass now. Ok. Let’s got to the room. I enter the room to find a sitting area, an executive table, a dining table, a balcony and a separate bedroom. Oh shit. I immediately asked the guy “are all rooms like this?’ he replied in affirmative. I checked with my neighbours. Nopes I was the lucky one. They had rooms that were tiny and their bathrooms did not have a bath tub. Though I kind of wondered what’s the point of having a bath tub, especially when there was no stopper on it. This was embarrassing. I was getting a dose of stuff that I resented other getting.
As some pelebs came in for some or the other reason, they would remark on the room size and I would be even more apologetic. If having single occupancy was not enough embarrassment.
But these things are not going to change in a hurry. I don’t think it will ever change. Organisations will always reward seniority in visible ways. They need not be practical or economical. They will always remain so.
When I am travelling I prefer people having their own rooms. It’s often enough for you to give and get personal space. But on an offsite where binding is an important deliverable, I see no point.
But I kind of realised that after spending over 12 years working your butt off, an exclusive room on an offsite is a small perk that tells you… in a smallish way… that you have begun arriving. Now why would I need a dam room to tell me that. That’s the job of my boss.