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.

Almost sounds like there's a missing bit of information. Could one of the husbands have lightheartedly said to her they couldn't invite her as the wife would complain or something like that?

It sounds like quite an old-fashioned work culture.

Only ever men bringing their wives?? No female colleagues bringing their partners, or men bringing husbands?

I am a woman working abroad at conferences and trade shows a lot, if my colleagues were all male and bringing their wives I would feel a bit weird too. In the evening there tends to be a team dinner on occasion and changes the whole dynamic.

But it wouldn’t happen because a) there is usually a 50/50 split of men and women and not the stereotypical they all have wives/husbands etc anyway.

And even if it WAS a requirement of work that they have to tolerate people they don't want to be around off the clock (and in this case it's obviously not) - she was in fact still offered the option to joint them at dinner.

Her complaint was that the women were there because people thought she was going to behave inappropriately and unprofessionally.

WHY in God's name would she say this? If nobody said just that to her or strongly implied it on this trip she has told everyone exactly who she is.

The OP is also says that the presence of wives contribute positively to the culture of the company, a company she doesn’t work for.
It’s fairly BAU for people to socialise on work trips, the people who actually work for or with the business.

We can imagine a lot of different scenarios, she could have been drunk, heavily flirting or any number of things too 😅

OP does need to elaborate as to why she would make this bizarre complaint.

Because if she just fantasised this "reason" she is one to be avoided, whenever possible, forever.

There's at least some jobs where you also couldn't talk about work whilst out for dinner either!

It just seems pointless to me for people to keep generalising about what should happen on trips like these. There's obviously so much variation.

They all made there own individual plans
what to do in there own time after they’d clocked off

I don’t always so I either colleagues when on courses

I don’t think it’s normal to constantly have a spouse tagging along on work trips. The only time I’ve ever heard of it was for a guy who was self employed & traveled a lot. It wouldn’t be BAU in audit at all. I think that is relevant.

My guess is the majority of people on work trips don't bring a spouse, so I agree there. But you saying work trips are about work to you and including the evening in that isn't relevant unless we have information to suggest the same applies to this company. Talking about work over the evening meal isn't necessarily a norm or beneficial, and in some cases the expectation of time together in the evenings might even be discriminatory. In other roles it could be really important, and everything between.

When I was a child I had a couple of holidays because my DF was working away for a week and me and DM tagged along.

But apart from this situation where the two men explained their dinner plans you don’t experience the spouse ‘tagging’ along.

End of day:

A: want to get a drink or dinner at that pub?

B: Thsnks but I already have plans - have a good night, see you tomorrow morning

Person A never sees B’s companion

No weird ‘tagging along’ experienced.

But if all the colleagues are meeting up with their wives then it is leaving one person out. Yes she may be “invited” but not everyone would be comfortable with that dynamic. Either go out as work colleagues or do your own thing as individuals not as a group leaving one person out…

In the OPs scenario - although she does mention that in the past they have gone out as a group (which could also easily be at home) - on this particular trip both men had made separate plans with their wives, not together as a foursome.

OP and female colleague never laid eyes on each other.

I have no idea what you’re ranting about.

I have taken the op’s work for what occurred as I have no other certainty and am unwilling to make up stories.

Ah they should have all deferred to her before deciding if little wifey could come along.
She may have felt a bit awkward, but so what? I'm sure she doesn't need the men to babysit her.

I’m think the whole thing seems very Mad Men. Wives joining their husbands on every work trips & socialising as a group & describing this as improving the company is very 1950s. It’s not reflective of the modern world, it takes opportunity for socialising with colleagues as colleagues off the table.

I believe there is a tax implication re: writing off single occupancy accommodation if an employee's spouse is using it in the way OP describes. On that basis, a company policy of not having guests stay in your hotel room would be sound.

Obviously they can't dictate who you see and what you do when you're off the clock, so long as you are actually off the clock and it's not interfering with your work.

If OP and her partner booked their own room, socialized out of working hours and the quality of his work didn't suffer, an employer couldn't seek to prevent or penalize him for that.

Agree! Is this one of the “in the spirit of womanhood” examples where we’re meant to champion the plucky corporate lovely against the shallow, shallow vacuous ‘WAGS’ as they’ve been kindly labelled?

I have never seen an HR department move so quickly!

Complaint lodged, staff spoken to and a new policy published and communicated all by 1pm on a Monday.

Very efficient.

It may be normal in the sense of being common, but it's not required and it's not in every employee's best interests.

Providing OP and her husband pay for any costs above those the company would have paid if OP had not tagged along (as OP stated they did), there are no tax implications.

Right. It is such a strange notion that we must invent scenarios to fill in the gaps. All we have is the OPs word to go on. Sometimes OPs do sound unreliable, over dramatic etc - but OP sounds fine in both her comments, so of course we can only take her word for things, as that's all we've got 😄

Nope, the modern world is just like every other era in time - people do different things, all the time and there is no one set standard. Can't imagine anything worse than being forced to hang out with colleagues I had nothing in common with. I just wouldn't do it, unless it was a requirement for the job - and in this case it wasn't.

The company can tell people they can't come as freebies. They can't tell people they can't socialise with their spouses at the end of the work day - so if the wives want to keep coming they can pay for themselves. It was a nice freebie while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end.

It is common, it’s often required and best interest aren’t really that relevant.

A more junior colleague had the two colleagues she was working with bring their wives on a short business trip, something which the OP describes as a “nice lifestyle”. That’s very unusual to me. I’d wager it was common 20-30 years ago but it isn’t now.

Life is so boring and joyless nowadays honestly I really pity the younger generation.

Who on earth wants to socialise with colleagues really, talk shop all day and evening as well?