Husband’s female colleague’s issue being taken very seriously.

[Sweetmarzipan]

So background. DH works in a fairly male dominated industry.

When he first started in this company he would be away fairly often. One or two nights away every 4/6 weeks. One week in April and the odd conference.

I almost always went with him if I could for no other reason than the free hotel. If there were other colleagues they would have have their spouses with them as well. We became friends with many of them and still socialise. Irrelevant to my post but we always had separate bills and we never exploited expenses and we never saw other colleagues do this either but obviously the room was the same price regardless of occupancy.

Covid came along and other ways of doing things came about so audits etc were done remotely and these trips are now few and far between.

Last week I did join him for the first time in probably 6 months. He was leaving the centre with a male colleague in his fifties and a female colleague (mid thirties but I don’t know if anyone will find ages relevant) who had joined the company around three to six months ago (DH and colleague differ on the dates).

As they left to check into hotel the female colleague asked if they were eating, but they said that they had their wives with them and the male colleague said that she was welcome to join them but she declined. We had booked a pub meal on our own.

They were all together on Friday but over the weekend she has made a complaint suggesting that I and the other colleague’s wife had deliberately tagged along as they believed she would be unprofessional and inappropriate.

An email has now gone out saying that spouses are no longer able to tag along.

Colleague was spoken to face to face and the bosses did seem apologetic. DH was on a site and saw the email and was phoned by one of the directors again with apologies.

Surely she should have been told about the culture of the company. I am really gobsmacked. Two other wives have texted me this morning and they feel the same. We had a really nice lifestyle there which is bound to have created a nice work environment.

I imagine the objection is primarily because people don’t like others getting perks / something for free. They see it as unfair.

If I were to be more charitable towards those who strongly object, I would say that perhaps there’s concern that any expectations outside work hours (networking, team bonding etc.) would be harder if spouses are around waiting for workers so they can go and have dinner with them or whatever else. eg the scenario below

Boss: Oh, client X thought seeing as we’re here in their city, we should go for a drink after work.
Worker: Sorry, my wife/husband is here with me and we’ve booked dinner at that time.
Boss: Oh.

If I was your husband I would make a point of being very professional and polite to the female colleague, but would make no effort to socialise with her. While accepting the change in policy I would also be vocal about my disappointment so she is under no impression that she was speaking for the silent majority.

Do you think she expected such a big response to her complaint? If so, she either doesn't care if she's liked or she mis-read the room massively and she won't be at the company long.

@Crushed23 Op says it was initially more frequent every 4-6 weeks.
I join my husband sometimes as I’m an empty nester, can wfh (from anywhere in uk) and have very generous annual leave.
If he’s staying somewhere luxurious with a nice pool and spa I can use facilities. I’m very happy in my own company. I do things like have afternoon tea or book a sightseeing tour. If we have an evening meal together he uses his allowance so I’m only paying for me. Some uk, some international. I’ve visited places I’ve never been before. It’s a definite lifestyle perk for me. Very much norm in his sector for spouses of either sex to tag along.

*Parenting forum.

Probably more likely the blokes don't want the wives hanging around now there's a hot younger women in attendance. Wife in tow is the ultimate cock block. Cooked up this rubbish as they don't want to own it.

Indeed. Which is probably really unfair when you consider how incredibly unlikely it is that she actually said what she is being accused of saying.

Except you could argue she’s more entitled to be there than the spouses

Perhaps because she felt excluded?

I would really love to hear the female colleagues' version of events. In particular what was said to her to make her feel that was the reason the wives tagged along - I doubt she came up with this from nowhere.

Anyway how it has been communicated is incredibly unprofessional.

*Women’s social media board

There is so much more than parenting here

Clearly a lot of posters clearly can’t trust their men to keep their cocks in their trousers and assume any younger woman can’t resist them 🤣

Are the company paying your husband for the 24 hours then?. If the are dictating what he’s doing and not being paid for I would refuse the trips personally - I can understand why they don’t want to pay for spouses but if they don’t know can’t see the problem

where is your evidence for this? or is it a feeling?

I agree with you. Something was lost between HR and MumsNet.

But once every 6 months more recently, which what this new rule puts a stop to. OP will not be losing out on a “nice lifestyle”. She just won’t get a free hotel for 1-2 nights every 6 months. Also, I don’t know what industry OP’s husband is in, but I highly doubt they were putting them up in fancy hotels with luxurious spas. Like I say, companies have massively cracked down on these sorts of perks. I work in the US now and luckily companies are less stingy here, but we had colleagues over from the the London office recently for a conference in another city, and all but a couple of hotels were “out of policy” for them, whereas we could choose from almost all the hotels in the city. It reminded me how joyless things had gotten in the UK corporate world (I left in 2024).

I used to have to go away on work trips, sometimes with colleagues I knew well, and by the end of a tiring day like fuck would I spend all evening with them too.
Perhaps a very swift drink after an equally swift dinner then I’d go back to my room to read, watch TV and phone home.
And sometimes I would eat dinner in my room too.
This was never a jolly for me, it was work and at the end of the working day the company had no right whatsoever to tell me how to spend my free time.
Yeah, the lads might like to get bladdered in the bar every evening, putting the drinks on exes (as allowed) but I certainly did not want to. So I didn’t.

I can't really explain why but the concept of a group of men all bringing their wives along on their business trips, who apparently don't work or have any dependents, just feels a bit old fashioned and uncomfortable?

I guess my question is did anyone tell this women before she went on the business trip thay she could bring a friend/partner along in the evening to keep her company? Did they let her know that the evenings were for her to make plans with? Or did she just find out in that moment that everyone else had someone to socialise with in the evening and had planned date nights and she was going to be sat alone in her room?

It is usual protocol to socialise with colleagues for dinner on business trips, and whilst I would be quite happy if I didn't have to have dinner with 2 50yo men, I'd be royally pissed off I found out that everyone else had bought a friend and no one had told me

Wtaf? Cock block? God forbid those husbands might actually want to <gasp!> have sex with their <gasp!> wives*, in their hotel rooms, if they're staying with them! The idea! 😮

*and vice versa, obviously.

But that is not the reason she gave. The reason she gave (allegedly) was that the wives came along to protect their husbands form unwanted female advances!

Except she was invited to eat with her colleague and his wife…

Yes, I’ve been trying to guess the industry. I work in a male-dominated field (80% male, higher at senior levels) and the vast majority of the men have a spouse who works. Very very few housewives/SAHMs (the one I can think of, there’s a disabled child in the picture). A considerable proportion have a spouse in a similar/adjacent industry, having met them at university or at work in the early part of their career. Reading the OP, I can’t help but think ‘what century is this?’

Maybe everyone else spouses go to much more exciting conferences than mine but I genuinely can't imagine anything worse than going to a fairly average hotel to spend all day by myself, probably having to take a day of annual leave, just to go for dinner with DH in an average pub, and potentially god forbid his work colleagues. I could spend that time in my own house with my own friends nearby. It's not like you can charge a Michelin star meal to the company, DH gets a meal budget that covers a standard main and one drink so a nice meal is going to cost us

It's a free hotel room but not a free train ticket or a free flight, I'm not getting free food so have to pay for all my meals, this is costing money. I honestly don't see this as a great loss. Organise a fun activity with a friend next time with the money you'd usually spend

ScaredOfFlying

It is no matter what reason she gave. Spouses who are not working for the company at all are in the group and it feels that employees without partners are the third wheel on their own work trip!

None of my male colleagues have spouses that dont work except for one who's wife's retired.

DH works in a male dominated industry but again all the men have wives that either work or have young DC. I cant picture a situation where so many wives are free to drop their own lives every 4-6 weeks

I’ve never come across a nice hotel having a single room with a single bed. It’s always minimum one bed usually king size or larger. So makes no difference to cost of room if spouse there. If breakfast is billed separately then obviously pay your own but usually isn’t.
Interesting everyone assumes stay at home wife. With wfh it’s easy to work from hotel.