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'll be honest partners tagging along on work trips just feels a bit tragic/ controlling/ subservient.

Obviously different if there in their own capacity.

I quite like my OHs colleagues and their partners, and have done plenty socially. But I can't imagine going on a work trip with him, nor him on mine. Also not what I want to use my AL for!

IMO - bringing spouses on work trips is unprofessional. And just weird.

The trips should be about work and bonding with colleagues. Not for peoples partners and spouses to have a little jolly and then go off on their own as couples for a meal. Do that in your own time!

Well, that's shit of her. I used to love spending time with DH in hotels for work. My DH used to work away Monday - Friday so we only ever saw each other weekends, so as soon as I left work to start our family, we used to go and stay with him during the week quite often. We covered all of mine and our child's expenses, the hotel room was the same cost regardless. My DH and I would have been very fucked off with a new starter putting a stop to this. We had so many good memories doing this, otherwise DH would have missed out on a lot of the younger years of starting a family due to his work.

A right? Of course not.

But the sequence of events related by OP is strange. The complaint is so absurd as to be hard to credit . It suggests Chinese whispers.

I thought OP gushing about how friendly the company culture is, while showing no evidence of good will to DH’s new colleague, was a rather stark contradiction.

I think something happened and the colleague was offended. Maybe she overreacted, but I doubt she manufactured the complaint from thin air.

My take on this is that companies are generally cracking down on perks that can be perceived negatively, even if they don’t cost the company a penny more.

25 years ago when I had the misfortune to be co-opted onto a management-employee forum perks were very rapidly becoming cash-or-nowt as trying to navigate everyones circumstances became a minefield.

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.

How do you know that (1) she, specifically, made this complaint and when and (2) the exact nature of the complaint? I've done frequent business travel for companies that allowed this - even one where the company paid for a partner/friend to come to the job location for the weekend if the employee had been sent on a long trip - and it's never been awkward because everyone had the same chance and the reasons for it were clear. But also, having travelled for business a lot on shorter trips with male colleagues only, I can't imagine having ever said what you claim this woman said. It plays directly into the absolute worst stereotypes that have historically held women back in business, and if said by a professional woman she'd be placing herself in a very bad light and basically sabotaging herself professionally.

If the manager/HR person who spoke to your husband actually TOLD him that this specific coworker made this specific complaint, that is hugely unprofessional! But I'd be strongly suspecting your husband, for some reason, does not have this story right.

Bringing spouses could also be construed as discriminating against parents, which would be an amusing tribunal.

How nasty of her especially as she had been invited out to dinner.
way to go lady. You’ve just made yourself the company pariah.
she’d have been much better served speaking to people going on the next work trip and preparing accordingly. I certainly wouldn’t be wanting to hang out with her if she was my colleague since this is how she treats people.

The evening is their own time!

"I'll be honest partners tagging along on work trips just feels a bit tragic/ controlling/ subservient"

Oh, here we go again... 🙄

I’m here for the plot twist where OP’s husband confesses that there was no change of policy. He just told his wife that so he could have a free run of leering at his female colleague.

No evidence. I'd guess the email reads far differently than what the OP states.

Then it should be a “work day out”. No paid for hotels involved.

A work trip, with paid for overnight stays shouldn’t be a open invitation to bring along a spouse for a night away.

I can see that being a reason a manager might decide to change policy - especially if you have the kind of industry where client entertaining is important.

And as I said if your work trip is a special event, chance for networking, need for group debriefing etc after hours then its would be odd to have a spouse hanging about.

But if your work ‘trip’ is simply working off site on a regular basis which requires an overnight, then it’s bonkers to see it as any different than going home after your regular working day.

My Dad used to have to audit other offices in his company, which meant 2-3 times a year traveling to a different city (by car) spending two days in that office and going home - it was no different in terms of a working day than being at his home office.

So my Mum who was retired would go with him, spend the day doing her own thing and then they’d have the evening together.

At one point I was working in one of the cities he had to go to, so I could spend the day having fun with my Mum and then we’d all have dinner together.

His colleague who came with him used to skip the hotel, stay with friends and pocket the hotel expenses (back when you could do that) - neither was at all bothered about how the other spent their evenings.

I suppose it depends on sector.
Mine travels a lot so is a platinum member of hotel chain so gets room upgrades, free club level etc.
He’s currently in a 5 star hotel and will be eating a meal alone after work. I couldn’t join him this time.
Instead I’ve worked from home. If I’d gone I could have worked from hotel (I have work laptop and a portable monitor screen as prefer 2 screens). Logged off at 5.30pm and had a look around the shops and then joined him for dinner (paid my half) and a dip in rooftop pool. Wouldn’t impact his work at all. Would cost company zero extra. I know what I’d have preferred to be doing this evening.

I’m in a couple of minds about this. People who go away for work quite often tend to resent it once the novelty wears off. It’s a bit like after work drinks - the senior people are often keen to get away a bit earlier but feel obliged to stay. So letting people bring spouses may alleviate that a bit. And, maybe, if the wives amuse themselves in the daytime, it shouldn’t have an impact on the work.

On the other hand, if the wives always come then perhaps it does get weird for those who don’t bring anyone.

Your company sends you to work in a satellite office for three days, 200 miles away from home.

You will be doing your regular 9-5 work schedule but as you will be 200 miles from home at the company’s request they pay for a hotel for you overnight.

It can’t me a ‘work day out’ because the commute is too far.

If you bring along your spouse, it’s no extra expense for the company, and for you it’s like going home to your spouse at the end of the day, instead you are going back to a hotel room.

But the older, male colleagues are socialising and their wives are besties because they get to tag along. It isn't a bonding experience, except it actually is isn't it? So the person who doesn't have a partner with them, who is a different sex and age to the others, has been left out of the pre-planning, with a last minute invitation to join them if she wanted to by one of her colleagues (and the OP doesn't sound like she was too keen on this happening, her husband didn't extend an invitation either). A nice little club for the working men and their little wives who tag along on a jolly.

I think being sent to work away at a satellite office is a completely different scenario to a group of colleagues attending a work trip/conference who want to bring their spouses along for a hotel stay.

Tell me about it. I travel alone and was somewhat amused by the comments upthread. I've never seen my room cost go down when I change the selector from two guests to one!

Yes, I do get extra pillows and towels. I'm paying, goddammit!

It is their own time. They're getting their normal pay and subsistence, it's not a glitzy jolly.

Yes, but I get the impression from the OP that the week in April they regularly did was exactly that - regular working day that had to be done away from the main office.

Those types of work trips don’t need to have evening commitments.

I’ve a female friend who enjoys the theatre and always books a west end show if she has a work meeting necessitating a hotel in London. She certainly doesn’t socialise with her boss who also attends.
Unless it’s a specific work evening event your evening is your free time to do as you please.

But in the OPs most recent trip the male colleagues were not all socializing together - they were both spending the night separately with their own spouses - it was EXACTLY like going home after work to their partners. Just in a different location.

I read that as “trading spouses” that would be a much more interesting thread 😂