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’ve been on work trips with colleagues where a couple of their spouses have been there. Why not? It’s a free hotel room and all they have to pay is their own flights. Work trips are pretty full on so it’s not as though they’re hanging around together during the trip itself, but then they might extend the trip (on their own £££) and have a little holiday at the end. I’m single and it has never occurred to me to object to this. Last time I was on such a trip I had a lovely hour before an evening dinner meeting having a drink with colleague and her husband. Then she and I went off for the dinner and her husband had his dinner alone.

People working in professional services do not get paid by the hour.

Absolutely this. I have frequent work trips to Asia. My DH comes along around once a year. He amuses himself during the day and we meet up at night. Last time a colleague from the US, that I am particularly friendly with, had her husband with her and the four of us met up for dinner.

The company is aware we do this and as long as there's no additional costs, ie, they pay for their own meals, it's not an issue.

I do find it bizarre that OP talks about contributing to the company in a positive way as if her socialising with her husband while he’s on a work trip is a team building exercise.

There is a culture where I work of not leaving people out particularly newer employees. That contributes positively to the culture.

I started work just after the 2008 crash. No one was obsessed with 9-5, many people worked until the wee hours and some of those same people were then made redundant. I feel like people obsessed with work time being 9-5 inc on work trips don’t know how utterly privileged they are. I now work is a less demanding role and I still at times have to work or be with colleagues after 5.

This.

Eh? ...
Accounts
Admin
Purchasing
Building Services
Legal (some overtime, some business social)
HR (some social)
Companies I've worked at have also had ...
Archives
Occupational Health
Market Research
Strategy development (some overtime, some social)
Design management (some business social)
... all of which clocked out at end of business hours.

No, professional services aren't paid by the hour. They're paid for the job, within their contracted hours. Their contracts don't say they must put in extra hours to hob-nob with colleagues. If they want to do that, they do it to their own schedule. If they don't want to, they don't.

If @Sweetmarzipan's husband is an auditor, for instance, he can only work in the client's accounts department while it's open. He can't discuss the work in public spaces. He's extremely unlikely to have a contract specifying social availability.

I had to be socially available nearly all the time, which is why I got paid more than many of the above and had a huge expenses allowance.

You have to stop assuming all jobs are like yours 😳

"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."

She thought you were hoping for an orgy?

Exactly. she knows how it starts.

I know what employment contracts say I work in that field, so stop telling me what I’m “assuming”.. The professional services I refer to to not include admin and other stuff you’ve listed, many of which are not technically professional services Admin are not generally expected to work outside contracted hours generally, it’s a support function not a professional services role.

I’m referring to professional services roles like legal, accountancy, some forms of consultancy.

Possibly there’s an affair going on between this lady and one of the men, happening when no partners go!

This is like something written in the 1950s. It’s all wife’s who tag along.and the only female wrote an email saying the wives were only there so their husbands didn’t shag ghe woman in her 30s or she didn’t try to shag them.

what am I even reading, 😂

Jeez I though the op was bad, this is even worse.

I have questions this is so weird to me. Where are these work trips causing spouses to want to go? How are you all available?

@the7Vabo I do find it bizarre that OP talks about contributing to the company in a positive way as if her socialising with her husband while he’s on a work trip is a team building exercise.

100% - such an old fashioned practice anyway, smacks of Stepford Wives!

Who phrased that, your husband? Obviously you don't work for the company so are only hearing second hand!

So true, if you want to be part of a company get a job there. Don't tag along with hubbie and try and make out you are integral to the team.

Quoting the OP and laterally thinking 🤔

Or the husbands have fibbed/assumed about the reason for the change in company culture (I'm not going to call it policy, because I suspect nothing was ever written down).

I can think of several alternative explanations:

The female employee may have wished to keep something private - maybe they are in a same sex relationship or a throuple, and because of that feels that they can't bring their partner/s along, and feels excluded. This also would be the case if anyone in the company has made some unprofessional comments about these types of relationships without realising that their colleague is the type of person they are referring to.

The female employee may have small children and can't bring their partner along as they need to care for the kids while she is abroad (especially if abroad for a week), so this could be indirect discrimination.

There may be some exclusionary behaviour at work, and the bringing partners and deciding who they have dinner with (remembering that others have talked about how culturally there can be an expectation of some informal work stuff being done/discussed at dinner or networking). Exclusionary behaviour outside the workplace can result in claims against the company e.g. if everyone goes out regularly but never invites a specific someone.

As others have said, potentially there are some tax implications, and it may be that there is someone new at the company who has pointed this out.

Finally, is there any possibility that there has been some persistent stupid banter at work around "Oooh, my wife wouldn't like that/let me do that" and so the female employee has been left with the impression that the wives are on the look out for predatory single women?

Could be insecure wives who don't trust their husbands insisting on tagging along?

Professional contracts in my sector don’t tend to pay overtime - you’re expected to do the hours needed.

I could and did take time back if I’d been away a lot.

OP referred also to the fact that DH was on site. This wouldn’t be relevant if the email had been sent to him

My DH travels a lot, up to 2 weeks away sometimes. Before DC I used to tag along on short trips. DC put a stop to my trips, but my DH continued to travel a lot.

During these trips away I was lonely, had to deal with DC on my own, and had a lot of emergencies I had to deal with single handedly.

Now my DC are starting to go off to Uni, and I won't be sitting here alone for days and weeks on end. I'll be "tagging along".

Most of my friends say they wouldn't put up with my DH's travel and I have.

Quite frankly if some woman comes along and has an issue with me being there, then I will no longer be OK with my DH being away, and he can either tell his company that he wants a job that takes him home every night, or the woman can go make her own social life, as we are not there to provide it.

If I were the DH of the OP I would refuse to have a drink or eat with her and send her a message that she hasn't got her own way.

Or.. maybe the company should not be so slack with divulging the alleged contents of an alleged complaint.

If I was the alleged complainee I’d be asking them a lot of questions about that.

And she’s entitled to speak to her bosses if she felt someone was treating her in a manner that indicated they had concerns about her behaviour.

I don’t know why it’s being assumed that “unprofessional and inappropriate” has equated to “sex” or sexually inappropriate … it could also mean divulging business information loudly or inappropriately or that she’d drink too much or dance on the table.

IF she said anything remotely like that.

Did you see any official documents stating that this is the complaint she made? You say you husband was told this directly, but it’s very unprofessional on the part of the person telling him this so I’d not necessarily trust what they were saying.

It could just be that she thinks it’s unprofessional to bring spouses on a work trip. Or she thinks a work trip should involve some level of team building through eating together in the evenings, and bringing your wife along is weird.

Blimey this can’t be for real? Surely?