Anyone who'd be asked this would automatically say "Of course not!"
But in many cases this just isn't true. I myself thought that giving up my right of privacy for a short amount of time was surely worth the money I could earn on the job I was offered.
It should've only taken two month to realize just how mistaken this thought was!
I worked (as you already know if you've read my blog before) at a hotel and - as I can tell - one of the good ones. This high class four star superior gave me a room in their staff accommodation. Unfortunately I had to share this small room with one of my colleagues. In the summer during my time at the sailing school in Northern Germany I shared a room with three other girls so I thought that sharing a room with just one other girl couldn't be that hard, but other than at the sailing school, where we all got along very well, at the hotel (which is somewhere in the middle of nowhere) this particular colleague I had to share the room with turned out to be pretty annoying.
She wasn't interested in anything but stupid TV shows, always left the toilet lid up, for some crazy reason only she knew she hid the toilet paper and the trash bags in her wardrobe (which I had no right to open - not even for toilet paper - because it was her private wardrobe), she never removed the drops of her liquid make up from the sink and always put the empty toilet paper rolls on my part of the bathroom shelf.
At some point I decided to refuse to clean up. From that moment on, living there was pure horror!
She didn't talk to me except phrases like "Did you clean up?" and "You have to clean up, I won't do it!" and sharing a room with someone who never talks to you makes you feel really uncomfortable.
She watched everything I did but never said a word.
One evening the argumentation about the cleaning reached its peak.
"Clean up or I'll go and tell our boss!" was what she said. Pardon? How childish is she??? And I was like "Yo, if you think it's dirty, clean up yourself."
On this night she disappeared from our room and I, knowing that she was gone, finally could clean up the room and the bathroom first thing in the morning.
I should have known that this wasn't the end. Of course she came back. Not talking, not showing any sign of expression on her face. She talked to our boss, threatened her with quitting the job and I was forced to leave the room and take a room (which I would have had to pay for) somewhere else.
I quit the job, packed my bags, moved out, went to the city, got a new job right on the same day and next weekend I'll move into my brand new, full furnished apartment in the city center.
I will never again take a job where I have to share my room with someone. I can play guitar, watch TV, talk on the phone and take a shower whenever I want without being spied on by someone who never talks and I'll never again find drops of liquid make up in my bathroom!
Right now I'm sitting at the Café Frauentor in Weimar/Germany where I visit my sister and I'm asking myself how I could ever take this job at the hotel.
No money in the world could ever be worth giving up my right of privacy. Life isn't only about working for a living. It should also be about living, fun, friends, loving, music and all the stuff that makes you feel comfortable, 'cause this life is the only one we have.
