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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be annoyed that DH's work teambuilding event includes an overnight stay?

93 replies

Mobby · 21/07/2010 07:23

He's at work enough already! Long hours, contactable 24/7 thanks to lovely modern technology.

I think its selfish of his work to expect everyone to attend a work jolly that involves 2 days and an overnight stay - its over the weekend too.

I'm not going to stop him going, he's looking forward to it.

Am I being unreasonable to be annoyed about this?

OP posts:

Gay40 · 21/07/2010 10:37

You are definitely not being unreasonable for disliking the company practice for arranging work things on a weekend.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/07/2010 10:37

Bonsoir - I so wasn't Alexis Colby the first time I went to Florida. I was naive and hadn't packed anything in my carry on bag, true to form my luggace went missing, had to go into the meeting the next day with yesterday's conatct lenses welded to my eyeballs, hair looking like the wreck of the hesperus as hadn't been combed plus Florida humidity combo, NO make, and the clothes i had travelled in (pedal pushers and flip flops).

I desperately wanted to try and buy some clothes prior tp the meeting, but I had no hire car and you can't walk anywhere (I tried to traipse down the side of the road but nearly got killed) and there were no buses.

I cried that night whilst eating my in and out burger.

I looked, and felt like, a complete tool.

Original poster

Mobby · 21/07/2010 10:39

Okay I get what you are saying about losing touch with what it is like in the workplace. I think, as a SAHM, I have forgotten to an extent the pressures etc one is under when at work. That's a fair point.
However, I don't think that clouded my feelings on this matter - as I've said previously I'm very supportive of my DH's career and have no issues with him going away on business. He is in fact away at this point in time which I have no issues with (although of course I miss him). Its part of his job. The teambuilding over a weekend isn't.

OP posts:

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/07/2010 10:40

UQD - I know that's not what you said, but harsh comments like that (and imo that was a bit) are unusual for you.

Am sure the OP appreciates her husband as well but i don't blame her one bit for moaning on MN about this kind of crap.

birdofthenorth · 21/07/2010 10:41

I have an overnight two day team retreat once a year, and two late night annual dinners which require overnight stays (and lots of ad hoc staying away overnight in between meetings, for conferences etc) BUT I'd say doing it on a weekend is a bit harsh. Not great for worklife balance, what if he were a single dad?

Gay40 · 21/07/2010 10:42

I sort of agree with UQD, but the irritation is with the employer, not her DH.
I reckon most people - even if they have forgotten a little bit for whatever reason - know what it is like when your employer makes you do something you'd rather not.

rubbersoul · 21/07/2010 10:42

YANBU

Some of these 'team building' exercises are crap and a waste of time and money, IMO.
My DH had one a few months ago but luckily his company saw the sense in arranging it on a week work day and they were finished by 5pm

PuppyMonkey · 21/07/2010 10:42

YANBU to be annoyed his company have organised this on a weekend. Nothing at all to do with SAHM thinking money magically appears in the bank.

Remember it's a sodding team building jolly, not a conference on inventing the next cure for cancer. It'll be a waste of time and a waste of money (have been on loads). And of course your DH is loking forward to it - what a skivey lovely time they'll all be having off in a hotel while you're stuck at home with the kids.

If team building is sooooo important, do it in work time.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/07/2010 10:45

Work organised a week long training session in a hotel - the hotel was in Broadway when work was in Cheltenham.

They were most surprised when I said that I would rather drive to Broadway and back every day (about 30mins drive) and not stay there all week.

Most other people stayed - they all got plastered in the evenings.

expatinscotland · 21/07/2010 10:45

I got out of one of them by pleading a stomach bug.

Pissed me off that I was expected to give up my weekend for a bunch of dumb ass shite like that.

The best part about it is that we got to get hammered on Saturday night.

freedom2010 · 21/07/2010 10:52

Yes just one weeked, this happens for the company I work for and sometimes runs into the weekend.

My DH job takes him away from his family around 5 times a year usually abroad for a period of two to three weeks a time.

It might be healthy for you both as you will appreciate what you have when you are apart.

QueenofDreams · 21/07/2010 10:57

UQD you have no idea whether or not she appreciates her husband's work.
I appreciate DP's work. I am FULLY aware of how bloody hard he works, because he gets in late at night knackered. I wish it could be some other way. i haven't lost touch just because I don't work - the evidence of what he goes through every day is right in front of me when he gets home. Just because I stay at home does not make me a blind idiot who's swanning round with DP's credit cards while he works his butt off.

And in my case I never planned on being a SAHM. The recession hit right after I had to quit my job. So for over a year I've been looking for work, and failing to get any.

I don't think that any of this means that I should just meekly be happy when DP's work takes even more of his time and energy away from his family than it usually does.

BeenBeta · 21/07/2010 11:01

UQD - while I agree a tiny bit with you about the 'money magically appearing in the bank account' thing I so also think that firms deliberately exploit that fact that a bloke with a wife who is SAHM is especially under pressure to go along with this sort of stuff.

It is totally unecessary and could not agree more with Puppymonkey. It is all about nibbling away at family life and making people more and more dependent on the firm.

The arcehtypal 1950s corporate wife was invented in the USA. Many US firms have family weekend events that employees and families are expected to go to. Some have written instructions they give out to employees about how to look after their children, run their home, expect them to buy only company products, etc.

One US bank (now defunct) I interviewed with told me to my face that my whole life would be the bank, that my time would be owned by them and that having a wife that worked would be difficult. I sat there with a bemused look on my face which I am afraid conveyed my thinking which was 'you idiot, just listen to yourself'.

Not saying the DH is an idiot in this thread - just pointing out were this kind of thing leads to in the extreme. Many UK firms are going down ths track too.

It is one of the things I admire about many mainland European businesses. They at least have a sense of perspective and the family life of employees is important to everyone in the firm - not treated as an inconvenience.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/07/2010 11:06

I think there is a hug difference in teh way that mainland european companies work - the ethos is completely different. The French who worked for Airbus acted like they were doing the company a favour by working there. And a month off in August always helps.

I se most UK companies going the american way anwyay - Airbus UK always had a different ethos to the French, German and Spanish counterparts.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/07/2010 11:07

I remember at GE an email was sent towards the end of the year (financial year end) encouraging us all to buy GE fridges etc.

stubbornhubby · 21/07/2010 11:12

BTW - I think there is a LOT of difference between business travel that eats into your weekends, and silly team-building stuff at weekends.

Some jobs involve travel
Sometimes travel will inevitably mean leaving on Sunday etc. If you fly to/from NY you want to fly overningt.
that's part of the job, if you become a mnagement consultant well that's the life you have chosen. I know I have done it.

But team-building is completely different.

I would say that if it is not important enought to be done on company time then it's not important enough to do at all

(Company time: either do team building midweek or if that's not possible, then everyone gets a day's leave in lieu)

LIZS · 21/07/2010 11:16

Unfortunately ime the norm. I've long since lost count of the number of weekends affected by needing to take a Sunday evening flight out for a Monday morning meeting or delays back on a Friday, trips that spanned more than one week, meetings/team building over two days including overnight even when within easy travel distance, phone calls on works mobile at antisocial hours ... A more positive side of the current economic climate is that suchlike are fewer and more is carried out by telephone/video conferencing.

GeekOfTheWeek · 21/07/2010 11:17

YANBU imo.

If its so important it should be in works time.

Sounds like a load of shit anyway.

minipie · 21/07/2010 11:25

YANBU

My work does this - but at most will be on Fri/Sat (and most people leave by Saturday lunchtime).

If it was over an entire weekend I'd be mightily annoyed.

twopeople · 21/07/2010 11:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

UnquietDad · 21/07/2010 12:36

I'm sorry if I sounded a little harsh but this is kind of the bargain you make, isn't it?

I think "team building" exercises are nonsense and pathetic, but that's why I don't work in an office and earn a comfortable monthly salary.

Think of them as a necessary evil of work (because they are, regardless of whether people see them as a "jolly"). And if you are a SAHM/D, be grateful you don't have to do such things yourself!

expatinscotland · 21/07/2010 13:03

I agree with UD, FWIW.

Life is a trade off.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

I had to give up plenty of weekends for shit like this. Didn't have kids then, but still would have preferred sleeping in at the weekends rather than having to be up and ready to go by 8 to work with my colleagues even more after a 60-hour week.

But money in the bank is a good thing.

Gay40 · 21/07/2010 13:35

It's always a compromise, I think. The balance between home and work is a ticky one.
I recently had to decline a really good course because it was over 10 weekends in 2 years. It doesn't sound a lot, I know, but it's a lot away from my family and also it means that DP doesn't get much of a break.
The odd weekend would have been OK, but 10 was unreasonable.
Likewise sometimes my work takes me out and about, overnights and weekends, and it is a trade-off for the times when I get to finish early and do the school run, the odd flyer if meetings end at lunch time and we scoot out to the cinema with DD etc.

stubbornhubby · 21/07/2010 16:01

UD is right about sucking it up.
One thing that's worse than a weekend of teambuilding: a weekend of team-building sulkily.

but everyone should remember how rubbish it is and then - when they in turn become bosses - refrain from inficting it upon their own staff.

goldenlife · 21/07/2010 16:33

I have a lot of sympathy for UQD's viewpoint - work is exactly that; at least 8 hours of relentless grinding work and needs to be taken into account and sometimes on MN it seems that SAHMs want their DH's to go out to work all day and then come home and cook supper, wash up, clean the house, look after the children, put the bins out, do the ironing, pay the bills, sort out the mortgage, unload Ocado shop, clean fridge etc Hmmm...methinks...that's what I do when I am working.....thinks more....it's very very hard which is why I never work for long

W/e team building is rubbish though :-(

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