Co-Worker as Roommate?
Co-Worker as Roommate?
(OP)
In my quest for better digs, a better landord and less rent, I've been looking to move in with a girlfriend, and possibly a third person, but 2 friends have bailed. A male co-worker suggested that I consider him as the third room mate. Lots of 3-bedroom houses available for reasonable rent here in Marin county, CA.
It seemed like the answer to my prayers, but now that the original roommate is reconsidering her situation, it's down to just me and this 23 year old CAD guy. Even though I could biologically be his mother, and no possibility for romance exists (in my mind at least), this has caused a few snickers in the office.
What seemed like a good idea is starting to look, well, not so good.
So the question is, would you live with a co-worker, same gender or no? A couple of people in the office have said never live with a person you work with, NO MATTER WHAT.
Seems like an extreme view, or am I just clouded by desperation?
It seemed like the answer to my prayers, but now that the original roommate is reconsidering her situation, it's down to just me and this 23 year old CAD guy. Even though I could biologically be his mother, and no possibility for romance exists (in my mind at least), this has caused a few snickers in the office.
What seemed like a good idea is starting to look, well, not so good.
So the question is, would you live with a co-worker, same gender or no? A couple of people in the office have said never live with a person you work with, NO MATTER WHAT.
Seems like an extreme view, or am I just clouded by desperation?
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"





RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
My wife & I recently had our daughter, son-in-law & grand-daughter stay with us (for about 16 months).
While we love them dearly, our relationship with them (& consequently each other) was becoming strained. Thankfully they now have a place of their own & we are easily rebuilding our relationships. My point being that too much closeness can definitely be a bad thing.
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RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
A lot depends on who you are and who the other person is. Some people can carry off these things and any snickers comments etc are water off a ducks back.
On the other hand, this is a profession where you may need to ensure that your integrity isn't undermined.
Lot's of jobs where the snickering doesn't matter, where the job isn't affected.
Maybe this isn't one of those sorts of jobs.
Plus, if you are going to sahre with some one, make it someone you know outide of the work environment, you only get to see co-workers at their professional best (or worst).
Out of the office they may prove to be complete jerks, or worse, and then where are you?
You can't easily compartmentalise any problems, they will intrude at work (I learned this the hard way when I were nowt but a lad, i.e when God was a boy).
Don't let other needs draw you into a situation you will regret later. It's better to regret not sharing than to regret sharing: the downside is easier to manage.
By the way, it probably doesn't matter who you share with, male or female, some one is bound to make some cheap comment or other, you move in with another lady and then what will they all be saying?
Better keep your private life to youself...
Of course, this probably isn't going to bother your male co-worker at all... sorry, unfair yes, but life is like that.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
There is a corollary that goes "Familiarity breeds attempt”
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
The problem with roommates is sooner or later "life" is going to happen (serious relationship, arguments, etc) and one or the other is going to be stuck having to cover the entire rent. This goes along the same lines as "living within your means" if you get my drift.
I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with having a roommate of the opposite sex. I suspect there would be some form of comfort level that you loose, like walking around in your boxers and picking your ears/nose/whatever. I was lucky in that my roommate and I weren't the types to divide everything... this my cabinet of food, I have the bottom rack in the fridge, you have the top, blue twoels are mine, yours are green, etc.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
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RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
He was in sales and I was doing field-service, so it was rare that were were actually in the appartment at the same time.
I didn't really like him all that much before we set up this arrangement, and less afterwards, but no big deal.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
I did share a house with a good friend of mine from work for a few months and it was fine, when I was 39, but as a result of that I decided to buy a small house rather than try and find another weirdo to share a larger rented house with.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Now we are older. If financial situations are such that a room mate is needed, then it is. People can snicker, but they are in a different situation. I would prefer other people snickering over paying too much rent and ruining your future (eg retiremetn fund any one?).
I have had both types of roomates, the ones with the line down the fridge, and the ones where they seem to be eating everything and anything in the fridge. There are no answers for stuff like that. Put a lock on your door - at least that defines your santuary in the house.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
One word: MILF.
You're playing with fire.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Regards,
-Mike
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
How did you cope with that situation? And what would be your recommendation for such cases?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Go to the student/life/campus center or whatever kids call it these days. On the cork board (do they still use that?), there are lots of flyers of people looking for roommates.
Or, use the same technique you used when you were an undergrad looking for accomodations.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Now what is your choice please?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Previously, people adviced me to look at the notice board of the company that I'd be working with. That sounded a good idea, until I've read the comments in this thread. So considering a situation of someone being relocated to a new place and at the same time knowing that staying with co-worker may not be a good idea, what other choice does he/she has?
In anycase, I would strongly recommend not to stay with students, particularly undergrads. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's completely a bad choice, but if you can't cope with the noise and partying, well, better not. Even my fellow postgraduate coursemates last time stayed away from staying at halls which were mostly inhibited by undergrads.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
My company is one of those that hires new graduates in bulk. Most of them tend to start off house-sharing for the reasons you state.
I took the alternative route. Short term digs while I found my feet. Then a house share from the local rag. On reflection it was a good thing to do. It's a good way to make friends with people outside of work.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
If you work side-by-side on the same projects all day long and then have to go home and spend your evenings together as well, you'll probably end up wanting to kill each other and it'll be much harder to not bring work home and not bring those petty arguments from home into work. It wouldn't be too professional if you rejected a good idea he had just to pay him back for leaving the toilet seat up!
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
I did a quick google but all the links came up rather blue and I could hear the company IT police running up the stairs, stun-guns to hand. So I decided not to click to find out.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
that's what 40 years of a good catholic up-bringing does for you. My mother would be proud!
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Had about 20 roommates from college through about 21 yrs of working.
Mostly OK other than:
1 dopehead who drink all my liquor (I guess that makes him an alcoholic dopehead)
1 utterly deadbeat idiot, who got drunk, drove to the liquor store 2 blocks away to buy more liquor and got a DUI. Also failed to appear on a different charge and I had to bail him out (lost that money in addition to about 6 months of rent. At least, he bought his own liquor)
1 female and her boyfriend whose lovemaking literally shook the house.
TTFN
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Ooops. Now I do.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
TTFN
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
IRStuff's comment jogged my memory and I just remembered the belly dancing thread....
You gotta give us a all the facts with a question like this:
you simply pose the question as being about sharing a flat with a 23 year old and you get one set of answers, add in the belly dancing and I have to say you are gonna be playing the straight man(woman) to all the gagsters in the office.....
Now, is there anything else you want to mention? (IRstuff is now doing a re-think and should soon have a scriptwriter lined up......)
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042947/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089346/
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
So in the interest of providing ALL the details jmw, I'll try to give enough background without going over board.
I've been out of the office for trial preparation. I'm the declared expert witness in a case that is going to trial because my boss is going to be out of the country. This will be my first experience testifying in court and it's been a lot of pressure (work stress)!
The attorneys didn't think I fit the part, no pot belly and not enough grey hair. I guess they thought I would be a pushover for the opposing side, but I passed the 'doesn't-crack-under-pressure-knows-her-sh!t-test.' What's funny is I got the grill test on the same day I threatened to run over my landlord with my car if he did not stop coming into my apartment without proper notice (and once without knocking while I was still in bed).
I turned my landlord in to the local building department a couple of weeks ago for redoing all the gas piping and plumbing without a permit and for violating several relevant codes.
The building department came down on him pretty hard for a lot more stuff than what I told them and pasted a cease and desist/stop work order on the door. So the relationship I have with my him is a bit strained, to say the least. Hence the pressure to move out.
My girlfriend, I'll call her Habibi, who was ready to bail out, decided to apply for the LSAT and will be going to law school in San Francisco in fall. She looked at her own situation and decided she would rather live with me than get an apartment in the City and give up her car. So she is back in, but she would still like to look at 3-bedroom houses and get a 3rd person. And she doesn't want to move until July, after the LSAT. Makes things a bit more difficult for me, but I'll survive. So right now, arunmrao, I'm staying in the same place at least through May and June, difficult as that may be.
Habibi and I decided the 23 year old CADguy would not work, not so much for the MILF factor, but more for the 'picking his toenails on the kitchen table' stuff. He already has occasional farting contests in the office with his office partner who is 56 and should know better. Oh, and for those who (MOM) still (I"D) don't (LIKE to) know (F_) what MILF is, here's a link:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MILF
If it's blocked by your system, go rent the movie American Pie and pay close attention to the scenes with Stifler's Mom. You might get the idea.
And yes GregLocock, roommates are for kids, but it is a lifestyle that is very prevalent in this area due to the extreme cost of housing. It's a phenomenon that I don't think is common in many places outside the SF bay area. Median price for an average home, 900 to 1,100 sf in Marin County just hit $965,000. And we are not talking pristine homes. These places, many of which were built in the '70's by pot-smoking hippies need work, and usually a lot of it. I know because the firm where I work also does renovation design for homes 3 million and up. Average cost of renovation is $500,000 just to cover basic deferred maintenance.
The increasing cost of housing keeps outstripping income, so it just gets further and further away. My only chance at it is to really save in rent, work a couple of jobs and try to save enough to buy in at the bottom.
jmw, I can't think of a belly dancing angle, except that my girlfriend is also a belly dancer and I'm sure the prospect of the occasional rehearsal with several more belly dancers at the house was of some interest to CADguy, but he and his toenails are out. I just told him that my girlfriend wasn't comfortable with living with a young guy that she might find attractive. OK, a TOTAL lie, but her real response was a little harsh and I didn't want to hurt his already fragile self esteem. It's that Mother-thing coming out again.
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
The BEST kind of roommate is a grad student with a lot of studying to do. You're too busy to get on each other's nerves.
"He already has occasional farting contests in the office with his office partner who is 56 and should know better. "
Must be a joy to work there...
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
The Bay Area has had out of whack housing prices since the 80's. My first house hunting in 1982 took me to the hills just south of Los Gatos. Drove down an unpaved single-lane (for both directions) road, found a smallish 1200 sqft house that "needed TLC." No side of the house matched any other side in color and a couple of sides didn't even have the same finishing materials. That listed at 40% about the market median at the time.
TTFN
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
PS While I was googling "MILF" (no, I didn't know either, so what? I lead sheltered life)I goggled (drooled) at "Belly dancer engineers".. and found rafts of them and all very attractive.... so hence, if you are already known as an attractive belly dancer, rooming with a 23 year old would have been a double whammy....
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
She then had me write down anything he did in the office that could be construed as annoying...to anyone...for whatever reason. When I got to the farting thing, Habibi threw a half a muffin at my head and asked me if I had been doing mind-altering drugs. My suggestion that he could confine it to his room and we could stock house air freshener caused another bit of breakfast to leave her plate, and an acusation of smoking crack.
OK I get it. Farting Cadguy = bad roomie
Actually, reading your posts helped me immensely. I can't tell you how much I laughed. The whole thing with my landlord has me in knots and you guys have provided me with some humor, and pretty good insight to the level of my desperation.
And what the H-E-double toothpicks are you guys doing reading Engtips on Sunday! I thought I was the only one working today.
Then I find out that I'm not even the only engineer/belly dancer! Actually, I'm a licensed architect (still working on the engineer thing), but apparently there are other architect/belly dancers as well. BTW, none of the sites I saw are me. I don't have my own belly dancing website yet, but I am occasionaly mistaken for this very well known belly dancer at large events.
http://ww
Similar body type, same height, probably close in age, and some facial resemblance. But I in no way approach her level of skill. Suhaila is an amazing dancer who has devoted her life to the art. I'm always flattered that people think I am her.
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Why is it that in grad school I routinely roomed with classmates (of various sexes, genders, orientations, and sanitation levels) and thought nothing of it, but when I think of the possibility of rooming with a co-worker, I immediately reject the idea because it would just be too much of that person? What's the difference? Is it just because I'm past the roommate stage of life and am fussier in my old age? Is it because roomie situations in a university setting are expected to change year to year whereas a co-worker rooming situation would be open-ended? Something else?
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Also, a lot less interest in new things and willingless to experience new things.
TTFN
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Can I move in with you? I've had all my shots, etc.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Wes C.
------------------------------
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
....OUCH!
Red I'm sorry, JMW's internet privaleges have been suspended.
"MILF" and "Belly Dancers" are definately not work related googles.
IT Department.
(Mrs. JMW - a very angry Mrs. JMW)
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Hmm, farting and food fights, might be some attractions there, good thing you're foregoing the cad guy roommate thing.
With gas prices where they are, maybe we should start a new thread about carpooling with your co-workers. I've done it for years and we kid our supervisor about charging work to the travel time - its the only time we can complete a discussion without interruption.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Best Regards,
Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
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o
_`\(,_
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Never argue with an idiot. They'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience every time.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Reminded me of a story A good friend of mine in HS went to Santa Clara Uni, and couldn't afford housing, so he bought a motor home (cheap, barely ran), and (3) 24 hour student parking permits, and lived in the parking lot of the college for a semester.
As the price of college goes up, and my motivation to work goes down proportionally, I think this may be the way my children live, if they want to "live on campus".
Wes C.
------------------------------
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
After reading all the responses, I still have not managed to resolve why it is OK to share a house with just some random person but not a co-worker. The usual method to find a roommate in the Bay area is to post on craigslist. You end up interviewing complete strangers for compatibility. It's not unlike speed dating if you have ever done that. You get ten minutes to decide if the person in front of you is an axe murderer or not.
It got me thinking about what having another technical person around would be like. Not that many engineers or architects up here in Marin looking for a roommate situation. Funny you should say living in a motor home in a parking lot is better. I like the idea of having an engineer roommate.
My point to my friend was that I thought it better to accept a known quantity that may have a few innocuous, manageable quirks, rather than a total stranger that might be weird and creepy in ways we could not even imagine. And in defense of Habibi throwing her muffin, we were outside enjoying the sun and a couple of mimosas while trying to conger up creepy roommate scenarios, and generally being silly with a game of 'top this'.
Like I said, sometimes you just gotta laugh because how are you ever going to know if your third roomie is prancing around in your unmentionables while you are out, unless you can also blackmail him at work with the photos?
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Also note that you don't know a coworker as well as you think you do. You never know what they really do on their own time unless you're there to see it. I have a perfect example from a couple of years ago when I still worked on a masonry crew. I got a long with everyone pretty well. About a year ago or so I found out that one of them was arrested for being a child molester! Now I would never have hung with these people but I never thought this guy was like that. I didn't get any vibes like that, so to speak. You really cannot always tell. Remember that. All you know about people at work is what they are like at work.
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Good luck whatever you decide to do.
respectfully
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
I noticed in the TV adds for the Bay to Breakers race they show a group in some kind of middle east or belly dancer costumes.
Are you running with bells on?
It could be a Barbra Eden fan club?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
I'm a member. She was great in the "7 Faces of Dr. Lao."
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
Is it Bay-to-Breakers already?!? Where does the time go?
I'm not running this year. Too bad...the Barbara Eden fan club sounds like my cup of tea.
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
RE: Co-Worker as Roommate?
No but seriously, cass, you are right in your decision not to move in with this dude. I am the second youngest person in my workplace (by 3 months.. the next oldest person is 32) and I couldn't picture living with anyone here. It's not that I don't get along with my co-workers, but like a few of the above posts say, it's really easy to get sick of someone, especially when the first thing you see in the morning is them walking around in their gitch.
When I was in college I lived with 2 guys I had classes with. It was my name on the lease. I had to kick them out. We don't talk anymore. Enough said.