"I'm sorry sir but this is a large hotel and we do experience some flush back."

When working in TV you often have to work away from home.
Most of the time it is overnight and you can get back to the luxury of your own bed the next day but sometimes it can be for a week of even a few weeks.

Usually you stop in a local hotel or on location itself.

Both can be a hassle. And both can result in some amusing situations.

There has been many a time when I have turned up at the hotel after a very long day traveling and working to find I have no room as it was not booked. This is not amusing when your tired and feel grotty and all you want to do is have a hot shower and chill out in front of a TV. After some negotiating between you and the production manager and the front desk you eventually get a room but your in bad mood by this point and hate the hotel.

In my time I have also experienced the classic front desk mistake which always happens to at least one of the crew on any shoot I have been on. The double booking. You check in, take the lift 6 floors up, trot down a maze of corridors following signs for your room, (inevitably the last on the corridor), slip you keycard in the slot, open the door and find someone else's luggage in your room. Last year on a Children's show I worked on this was a weekly occurrence for most of the team and it was always the monday morning joke of whose room you had gone into the night before. The Presenter managed to walk in on the director asleep about three times.

Hotels are a luxury though, except on one occasion when the Presenter walked into their room settled in and went to the bathroom to find a poo floating in the toilet. Trotting down to reception to complain that the room had not been cleaned they were met with this reply. "I'm sorry sir but this is a large hotel and while your room has been cleaned we do experience some flush back."

Sharing rooms is also a productions trick to save money. when your on location with the same people all day the last thing you want is to be stuck with them all night, often with runners you will never have met the other runner you are sharing with either. This is a nightmare, do they snore? Will they hog the bathroom? Will they be tidy? On one production they decided to stick the runners in their own cottage, two girls and three boys all sharing one working shower that was located in the girls room. Hideous. Having boys wondering into your room in the morning to shower and leaving bits of themselves in there.  Disgusting. But this was luxury compared to my next accommodation.

I'll tell you about this in a later blog, it gets worse. For now all I'll say is be prepared to rough it as a runner.