Last week, I had a lot of work to do far from home so was staying in a motel room. I must say, in spite of the fact that it was not the greatest place on earth, it was far more comfortable than some of the alternatives I’ve come to either personally experience or witness over the years.
My brother reminded me of a particularly bad night we had in a hotel a couple of years ago. I should have mentioned it last week, but I think I may have blocked it from my memory. We were in a fairly distant town to install doors in a hotel that was almost at the completion stage. So, the rooms were all close to finished. There was some wallpaper and carpet being installed, the fixtures were almost all installed, and the building was nice and warm, in spite of it being February. We had a lot of work to do in a rather short period of time, since they wanted the doors installed right at the end (to keep them from being damaged) and the hotel was several stories high. We decided we would get more done if we stayed the night. However, we didn’t bother to rent a room in the hotel that was right next to that one. I had stayed there previously and said it was expensive. No, we decided to stay in the unfinished hotel.

There are logistics to such an operation. It would help to have planned it thoroughly ahead of time so as to have essential things like blankets and pillows. You also need to be awake and working well past when everyone else leaves, and at the end of a construction project, there are often people working very late. And then you need to be sure to be awake and up working when everyone else starts arriving in the morning. You really don’t want people to think you slept there overnight.
So, we had no blankets. But we thought the rooms were warm enough and we had coats. We had no pillows, but there was a nice assortment of carpet underlay. And I must say, it ended up being one of the worst nights either of us has ever experienced. I think we both slept for approximately five minutes and spent the rest of the night trying to get comfortable and warm on the piles of smelly weird material which had no insulating value whatsoever.

But, amazingly enough, probably due to sheer strength of character and stubbornness, we did an astonishing amount of work that next day and managed to get out and go home to our own actual beds.
Actually, we probably worked as hard as humanly possible to ensure we never had to do that again.

I have seen other people stay on job sites. I know of one person how set up a trailer on site and lived there for a full year. Cheap rent, actually, since he had no family so didn’t need any permanent place to stay. Similarly, I saw one guy with his RV parked just outside a job site. He not only had a well-stocked fridge and BBQ, his wife was there cooking him lunch every day. He had his own small private version of the 1950s ideal.
The worst I’ve ever witnessed was a guy who decided to pitch a tent and camp out on the edge of the job site. His first day, he was chipper and energetic. By the end of the week, he was sullen, moody, a little dirty, and prone to fits of screaming rage whenever he made a mistake.
People make mistakes more often when they’re prone to temper tantrums.

Going anywhere to work is a pain. Going far away is worse. I certainly do not envy people who have to do it more regularly than me. But I’m sure there comes a time when the inside of the generic motel suite looks comfortable and homey. I’m sure the time comes when you start to feel that sensation of being at ease when the door cluncks shut behind you.

I’m sure that, for some people, the smell of stale cigarettes, Lysol, and recently vacated fast food becomes the smell of comfort, and the sound of people through the wall behind the bed becomes a lullaby.

At any rate, it’s better than sleeping on carpet rolls.