I stayed in a hotel room in Lisbon a few years ago that had just a glass wall separating the shower from the bedroom, and the toilet and sink was right on the other side of that, behind just another glass wall.
It was fine for me and my wife, but what if you’re on a business trip and sharing that room with a coworker?
(I suppose the answer is, it was a very nice hotel and if your company can afford to put you there, they can afford to give you your own room, but still.)
Aside: There isn’t actually such a thing as one-way glass: True one-way glass would defy the laws of thermodynamics. What there is is partially-opaque glass (often but not necessarily mirrored), that’s partially opaque both ways. The way you get the “one-way” effect is by lighting the different sides differently: Looking through partially-opaque glass into a dark room might be enough to mostly obscure what’s going on in the dark room, while looking through the partially-opaque glass into a well-lit room still lets you see clearly enough.
What this means is that, if you’re relying on “one-way glass” to obscure a restroom or other private space, and someone sets off a flash or other bright light in that private space, folks outside will get a view in.
It wasn’t in an “open concept” bathroom, but we absolutely saw a master bath while house-hunting that had two toilets in it. Not walled off - same room. Maybe 6 feet apart.
Our master bath actually has the toilet in its own mini-room just for the toilet. So the other partner can use the shower/sink/etc without interfering with someone doing their business. Also helps contain odors.
Just in case anyone doesn’t get the reference I present The Love Toilet.
Frankly, businesses should not be making unrelated co-workers share accommodations.
I like to make uncomfortable eye contact while doing my business.
100% I’ll get and pay for my own room if I had to thank you very much.
I agree with that. I’d also reconsider working for a company that’s either so poor or so cheap as to force me to share a room with a co-worker.
Was at a conference in San Diego once with my boss. We had separate rooms. One evening, boss asked me what I was going to do. I said that I was going to go shop an antique store to look for an anniversary gift for my wife. He said he would come with me.
The evil eye I gave him made him change his mind.
In the 90s I ran a small start up company with little extra cash. That’s the last time I shared a room with a co-worker. I hated roommates in college (except my girlfriend) and I certainly didn’t like it any better as an adult. Pre-covid, my job required a lot of travel, but everyone always got their own room.
Two examples I’ve seen personally:
A house in which the shower was in the hallway leading to the walk-in closet. The only way to get into the closet was to actually walk through the shower. “Hey, honey? I need to get dressed. Can you shut off the water for a sec?”
A house in which they’d converted the attic into another bedroom. It didn’t have a toilet on that floor, but it did have a shower- right in the middle of the room, without any sort of door or curtain surrounding it. It was just a basin with a drain, and a showerhead coming out of the ceiling. We couldn’t figure out where they put the soap or shampoo…
No argument from me, but if you go back far enough in history, they would have been expected to share not only a room but possibly also a bed.
AP exams are graded by these enormous gatherings of teachers and college instructors at various cheap cpnvention centers (currently in Salt Lake City, Tampa, and Cleveland). You have to share a room, though not this year because of COVID. I have no idea how the math works out for College Board, but people go along with it. Part of it is that 30 years ago, the Readings took place on college campuses, and people double-occupied dorms. Part of it is that many people have been doing this for years, decades, and have a roommate that is a good friend. But mostly, teachers just have low expectations.
One hotel in Tampa did have a translucent glass wall in at least some rooms. They did find those people different rooms.
I was part of “leadership” this year, so I went down for 14 nights instead of 7. Apparently, leadership always gets their own room, thank god. I cannot imagine sharing a hotel room with a stranger for 14 nights. Plus, just being a reader isn’t emotional in the way management waa. I needed my own space to unwind. I wouldn’t go if I had to share the room.
I know of a motel that had the bathtub/jacuzzi in the bedroom. But it was the kind of place with a mirror over the bed. And even there the toilet was in a separate room with a door.
Other stuff:
40 years ago a professor at school complained that all the houses she was looking at had sinks in the hall, like hotels. That I can see.
As for windows, we went through the models of a housing development they were building down the street. Staged like crazy to make it look bigger. The bathroom, on the second floor, had no curtains to let the light in. It faced the parking lot of the liquor store around the corner. That would be fun.
See, this is what I mean by “rich perverts”, because that set-up makes perfect sense for a place like a strip club. In fact, I’m like 80% sure I’ve seen such in an actual strip club at least once.
Please don’t lump all of us rich perverts together.
Back in the day, some friends of the family lived in an old, Victorian house that had been “modernized” (by 1970s standards anyway). The primary bedroom had an attached open-concept bathroom; it was tilted away (poor choice of words, but you know what I’m trying to say here) from the bedroom in such a way that you couldn’t see what was going on in there unless you went in, but regardless, there were no walls.
The couple had two daughters, I knew them from their preteen to teen years, who both loved to poop in that bathroom strictly for the lulz.
When we were looking for a house, one of the ones on our list looked to be extremely well priced, so we had a look at it - and found out why. The house was a wreck. The front door had deep scratches that looked like a bear had clawed it. The inside of the house was absolutely filthy, with holes kicked in some walls. The kitchen still had stacks of dishes still caked with old food. The carpet was stained and torn. This in a fairly new house in a good neighborhood.
But what really freaked us out was the basement. In a corner there was what looked like a tile floor for a shower, with about a 2" tiled rim around it and a drain in the center. Nice, expensive tile work. It was quite large - at least 7’ square. The entire area was painted red, and what looked like a shower head came out of the wall maybe 3 feet off the ground. It looked like maybe a rough-in for a tub had been converted into… whatever that was. No door or curtains, or evidence that there ever had been. No towel rack, no sink. The drain had clumps of hair in it. It looked for all the world like a killing floor in a slaughterhouse.
The realtor said that all he knew about the place was that at least two families had been living in it, and that’s it. My best guess is that maybe someone used it to dress animals that had been hunted, but I really have no idea.
The definitive exposition on why a door with a lock is an absolute requirement, NSFW.