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.

They were doing there own thing op was off somewhere different on her own with her husband
the other 2 were going out with there wives

It wasn't required, and it won't be happening now, for sure - not after she invented a reason in her own mind for why she was politely invited to dinner with older people - i.e. she decided the reason the wives were there was that they thought she'd behave unprofessionally and unacceptably. Completely fabricated, as far as we know.

A thousand red flags plus a klaxon.

Does no one else find it odd and unprofessional that the boss even shared what the woman’s concern was? It doesn’t add up and honestly seems like a terrible place to work.

I’m imagining a small company. Serious complaint (made at a weekend) owner thinks just nip in bud and ban spouses to avoid a potential fallout.Without much thought or any HR advice. Eg chap in his 50s wears a cpap machine but hasn’t told work as wife stays with him. Now he’ll need to speak to them and agree a reasonable adjustment.

If it is a small company and someone's whining about you having dinner with your wife, maybe they thought the men deserved to know this. Perhaps they felt they had to give reasons for why they are now stripping long standing colleagues of a long standing freebie based on a weird complaint from a newish colleague.

There is custom & practice now as much as there was in the 1950s. It isn’t BAU now to bring your spouse on a work trip and I certainly wouldn’t do it after being asked not to unless I wanted to sour relations with my employer.

I've never seen mad men, but if the husbands and wives want to spend their free time together who is this new colleague to dictate otherwise?
She was welcome to socialise but choose not to.

Yes. I raised this too but no one else seems to have commented on it. Op said her dh saw the email. How? It shouldn't have been shared with him . The fact it was, especially in a male dominant environment speaks volumes imo.

My colleagues are off to play darts in a couple of weeks. They won’t have a miserable time because like a lot of offices I’ve worked in a lot of people generally get on quite well. It might even spill into the evening which people seem to think is untouchable.

Maybe it's not so common now because someone has complained about not being able to go for dinner and drinks with the men without their spouses present.

I took the saw the email to mean the email sent to all staff saying no spouses to share hotel rooms. Boss spoke to chap in 50s as he was in office face to face and then phoned the dh as he was working away again at a client’s office. Not that boss shared her complaint email with him.

Nope, it's fine, lots of companies do it, I have a friend who does just this pretty regularly, she takes her husband on such trips. Doesn't matter if your company does or doesn't do it, many do.

And of course they must bring their wives with them if that's their choice as any company who tries to bully and harass their employees into enforced jollification with colleagues must be put in their place, and quickly.

So long as they make sure there is a genuine offer to include her, they have done all that is needed. It isn't everyone else's fault if she can't get over being invited but still feeling not invited.

ETA we can't all dictate exactly how every social situation must look to satisfy our insecurities.

That's nice for them. Totally irrelevant, of course, but nice for them.

It is if they're paying.

Spilling into the evening if fine if that's what you choose to do, choosing to spend your free time with your spouse should not be a reason for a colleague to have a strop and make a formal complaint 😂

Nope, they're not paying for off the clock time. If that is specifically included in the job description, fair enough.

Of course it’s not irrelevant. It’s an example of how people socialise in work all the time and it works out well all around. It’s not all misery and a chore.

And such a bizarre one too. She has imagined in her own head she wasn't welcome because people assumed she would be inappropriate or unprofessional.

She is telling a tale right here, unless there is a lot more to this that OP has not disclosed.

I don't believe that the company can prevent you and various other wives booking a room between you at the same hotel that your husbands are at, and then you going off to dinner with the husbands. And I'm sure they won't be monitoring who sleeps in which bedroom.

It is their own time though, unless they are being paid. Your employer can’t dictate what you do outside of contracted hours.

Nope, not remotely relevant :)

It doesn't actually matter, at all, to the OPs post what some people do, don't do, feel or don't feel.

It would only be relevant if what the OP and her husband did was unusual (it's not) unprofessional (it's not) or unacceptable (it's not).

That's not what these people or lots of others choose to do. Many do find it a misery and a chore, many don't. What the OPs husband others did was absolutely normal, standard and completely inoffensive.

Neither way is correct or incorrect, it just is.

And most don’t.

And most people tend to at least try to demonstrate to their employer that they care about company policy as they want to keep their job. And in a world where a lot of white collar jobs are at risk from AI that’s advisable.

Nope, lots do.

Fortunately it's not company policy that you must bar your wife from staying in the same hotel as you if she pays for herself or not see her when you're off the clock, as that would be absolutely nonsensical.

They will of course invite their wives if they choose to do so and if they choose to pay for themselves, as kowtowing to a loony employer who would demand such a thing would indeed be very inadvisable, particularly if they were threatening sacking you for doing such a normal, standard and utterly inoffensive thing.

But I doubt they'll bother as it's no longer a freebie.

It would definitely be time to look for a new job if your were stuck with a crackpot employer who made such demands - but of course, that's not the case.

You're starting to sound very intense and it's very weird tbh. Are you the woman who didn't want to have dinner with the wives? 😅

Obviously I would not gossip.

But I would recognise most people, at least in the Western world, who could gain anything from overhearing snippets of conversation about my research.