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.

It doesn't happen like that. Discussion takes place, policy is drafted or amended. That gets reviewed and edited, then re-reviewed for approval. Once the policy is ready for implementation there's a comms plan to brief people.

That doesn't all happen in one Monday morning.

That’s assuming a bigger company.
I could easily see this scenario when I worked in a small firm. Boss gets complaint and knee jerks sending an email to all staff saying no overnight guests in rooms paid for by company. Speaks to the two men involved to try and soften the blow. Thinks that’s all sorted. Not realising the potential knock on effects. 6 months later moaning about swings and roundabouts and lack of co operation from staff.

This!

May be so. But completely irrelevant to this thread.

You have no idea how it works at this or any other particular company. Not every policy addition or amendment needs multiple drafts, edits and a comms plan. They might have fewer staff than you've got tasks there for all we know.

This is unambiguous, non-contractual. There's absolutely no reason why the directors couldn't have made the decision over the weekend and told someone to bash an email out first thing Monday.

I do wonder if it would be thrown out in court, though. It seems like a pretty clear breach of ECHR article 8 so courts likely to find it unreasonable.

As a female in a male dominated industry this would piss me off. It should have been communicated prior to the trip that partners were allowed to join, otherwise it seems like sexist “being the wives along” crap from years gone by.

This poor woman’s probably already battling a gender pay gap and everyday sexism and she’s fed up with “old boys” style office dynamics.

Hahahaha! I love a comedy comment 😅

OP, you keep insisting that this policy "created a happy community". And I'm sure it did, in the days when it was a complete boys club. But it clearly wasn't creating a happy community when a woman who was there in her own right was grudgingly invited to tag along as a third wheel to dinner with her colleague and his wife, while the other colleague nipped off for a cosy dinner with his own wife.

DH and I have both worked in places where it's fine to bring along a spouse as long as it doesn't cost the company, but it would never be considered acceptable to make your own arrangements and leave out a colleague who was there on their own, and only invite them along when they ask about dinner.

Absolutely this.

Does she think they’re going to socialise with her now on away trips after this?

I’d be mortified to have made such a fuss of myself. Colleagues don’t have to babysit you.

Yeah, I'm not really buying the badass woman, forging her independent way in a man's world, can't cope with dinner on her own or with another woman at the table.

I've forged my independent way all over the place. I'd have taken the invitation as an opportunity to learn more about the culture, make friends with the bloke by making friends with his wife, and been rather pleased that I could bring a pal/sister/boyfriend on future offsite gigs if I wanted.

I sure as hell wouldn't have gone crying to the boss that my colleagues weren't forced to perform inane chitchat, exclusively with me, in their free time. If you mean to charge in with a wrecking ball, this is not the thing to wreck! She's managed to be weak and hostile at the same time. Weird.

I find it more weird that spouses go on work trips. Did you take annual leave from your own job to go?

Were you paid in full for those extra hours you worked? If not then it's not company time and you should have felt free to switch off from work and do whatever you wanted with your evenings.

Why do colleagues have to have dinner together? It's a work trip but still 9 to 5. Dinner arrangements aren't part of the work contract.

Sure I can see it as a politeness thing, but not something to complain about to HR.

This - for work trips in my industry, the expectation is everyone eats together and no one is left out.

Ofc she isn't going to accept the invite because it wasn't a proper invite, it was an awkward 'you can come if you want' when the guy felt caught out. Not as 'hey I dont know what you're doing for dinner, but these are our plans if you would like to join' earlier on in the day.

I probably wouldn't have complained, but I do think its just fairer for everyone to have a no spouse policy.

OP, if I were you I would be tempted to book my own room next time and just carry on spending all non-working time with my husband. If only to make the point that an employer can't dictate who their employees have dinner with in their time off.

Spouses were not going to the work functions.
Just sharing rooms and spending time together after work.

No way would I be socialising with that woman if I were working for the company. What a batshit assumption and how juvenille to report you.

Yes, it's a perk but the company is requiring workers to stay away from home. Their time at the end of the conference days is for them to recharge - socialise, sleep - however they see fit.

All agreeable employees should file a group complaint to management to ask to return to their prior arrangement. It promotes friendship and respect between workers and their partners and identifies the hardship they bear having to work often away from home.

It is a reasonable request.

Sounds like she can’t see the problems she has caused for herself

She could have joined you all and next time brought along her mum/friend/partnerr

Instead she has created bad feeling towards her. I think the company will become quite a toxic place for her.

Does she think by doing this that when she goes away next time her fellow colleagues will be having dinner with her

She is probably going to be shunned and if forced to have dinner with her the conversation will become guarded as she can’t be trusted

A company can’t dictate what happens outside of company hours unless as well as the hotel they also pay by the hour for every hour the person is away from their home

I've experienced the reverse of this. Only female joined an all male unit working away from home who often ate together. Actually recieved a call from one of the wives asking if I felt it was the right role for a woman! Increase in various wife visits often expressing they weren't going to 'miss out on the fun' whilst their partner was working away. Bizarre frankly. It was work, not a party. one or two actually seemed to regard themselves as an employed part of the team. Accompany your spouse when they are on a solo trip by all means, but it is inappropriate for spouses to tag along with groups of colleagues working away.

Nothing to stop her bringing someone along so don’t understand why this has anything to do with sex.

I have a friend I have known for years who worked with exh when they were at a company where this type of staying away was required.
I don’t think she ever conceived herself to be a 3rd wheel ever.
She would invite her partner or sometimes her mum along. They would join in with the conversation and eat out with us or sometimes we would book different restaurants

I think this woman thinks she is still being paid by the company when out of hours and the company can dictate what people do.

If she thinks she is going to be going out with her fellow work colleagues on the next trip she is deluding herself

Are you being paid for your time by the hour for when you are away. The company can’t dictate what you do unless they are paying for your time outside of company hours.

Not really it was a nice perk, now it’s gone. Be glad DH has a job and move on.

What professional services jobs are actually 9-5. It’s not the same as clocking into Tesco. Most professional services jobs have people working & socialising after 5. And this is covered in the contract.