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.

The evening is his own time there not works time they can eat with who they want

tbh if u were your DH I’d be giving her a wide berth she jumped straight in with the accusations type of person who would listen into private conversations out of works time take little snippets out of context then report them

I don’t know why people are surprised about spouses going

your not in company time at night is your own you can do what you want with who you want

tbh I’d get Dh to ask what the problem with because he’s not obligated to socialise and eat with other colleagues in his own time

You mean the employees whose spouses paid for themselves would be discriminating against employees whose spouses didn't pay to bring their children?

Interesting.

It's interesting how annoyed all the wives are but no mention that the husbands, the actual employees, are even remotely bothered.

"and their little wives"

And so it continues...

Oh my annual work conferences were definitely a glitzy jolly. Evenings always consisted of a paid for meal in Mayfair by the company.

No one brought their spouses or partners along. Granted the industry I previously worked in is probably a lot different to the OP’s.

Do we know this for sure? I’m inclined to take it with a boulder of salt, it could be just malicious gossip because they can’t possibly conceive a world where a woman would simply complain about an unprofessional situation.

The reason I find it unprofessional is because not everyone was aware of this +1 option.

I think some people are confusing the trip with a kind of office bonding/retreat.

In those situations, with organised evening activities it might be different.

But otherwise it is no different to going home for the evening. What if OP had lived close to the destination and her DH had not needed the hotel? New employee would have vetoed her DH returning home because she was on a trip and wanted the DH to dine with, but not his inconvenient wife?

That’s a leap not everyone want to shag s colleague and who says she was hot or have you just made that up

The wives were not socialising together.
Older man was planning on eating with his wife.
Op was going for pub meal with her husband.
Female colleague could have planned to have dinner with her partner, meet a friend from uni, watch a show, go shopping, go to gym, have a bath and room service. Anything.
They didn’t need to mention spouses. Older colleague could have said I’m going for a curry, he’s going to pub have a nice evening Jane see you at 9am tomorrow at the front entrance and she couldn’t have complained at all.

No I didn't mean that.

Carry on.

Ridiculous. After a day of conferences and meetings the last thing I want to do is spend even MORE time with my co-workers (with very few exceptions) I am already away from my home and family, you cant dictate how I spend my pff time. Unless the trip was specifically set up to have working meals/events at night. In which case I would not bring my spouse or course. Your lack of partner doesn't mean I have to entertain you at dinner.

Now that really would be an HR nightmare!

It sounds like everyone had spouses and went out for meals with them apart from one person who hasn't got a spouse. I would say the problem is not people bringing spouses with them, it's the fact that you are all a group but all so self centre that you would spilt up and leave one person alone. If you weren't so self-centred and rude, and had thought for a minute that X hadn't got a spouse with them, so you needed to make sure that everyone did something together with all of the colleagues including X and all the spouses, your bosses would probably have been fine with all the spouses still being about for free time.

I think it’s better not to have spouses when travelling for work, awkward for those who don’t.

This is really common in my line of work (university), partners pay flights and their own expenses but room is as you say, same price single or double occupancy

I think it's normal to have spouses tag along to a work trip once in a while. I definitely do not socialise after the end of a long conference day or whatever. Work pays for a hotel because you're too far away to get home at the end of a day, not because you're literally working 24 hours a day.

However, it is relevant that 1) it's a male dominated industry and 2) that so many wives tag along, as it means you're all mingling and the odd woman who actually works with these men gets left on the outside because she didn't bring a wife. And let's face it, husbands are a lot less likely to tag along to a woman's work trip. They're not SAHM's or work part time (which I assume you must do since you can tag along to so many trips).

So overall YABU and she was not unreasonable to raise it

I feel like if you were the person who will walk to a table and saw all of them and even the husband's face's that they looked like they were about to leave. I honeslty would say " Nope I am out of here. Bye fellas"

Huh?

It's pretty common for partners to tag along for bits in my DH industry. I did 6 weeks in Europe with him last year. It doesn't cost the client anything extra so why not?

Sorry

I highly doubt she made the complaint for that reason - that just sounds like someone is assuming the nature of the complaint. I personally would have complained to, it’s a WORK trip, there are so many reasons why spouses should be allowed to attend to. I’ve never in my life heard of companies allowing it.

Depends on location I’ve seen plenty of tag along husbands at the conference at the famous golf resort (they golf, their wife works)
There’s obviously same sex couples too.
As long as the working half is working as required it’s not impacting anyone.

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.

Something must have been said to give her that impression. She'd have to be an absolute fruit-loop to make it up for no reason, let alone complain to her employer about it and risk ruining her working relationships. Could one of her colleagues have said something (even light-heartedly) that was taken out of context?

Unless she has the world's most severe case of main character syndrome, it feels like there are some details missing.

Surely her employer would have told her that people's partners regularly join them on these trips and have done for years? That in itself disproves her suggestion that anyone's wives tagged along specifically to keep an eye on her.

Your husband has been with this company for years...they didn't even ask him for his side of the story?

Depressingly, this rings far, far more true than the complaint as described by OP.

Quite likely bonus points if that chap dislikes her.

Though I wouldn’t want to talk work over dinner works for work hours not after hours. Dinner is only paid for since they are too far to go home or as extra hours. So she would be disappointed with me as I’d of said sure we can discuss it tomorrow at work.