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.

and this woman was offered this

Dd goes away semi regularly with work. The idea that she spends every evening with her work colleagues is abhorrent to her. (she actually gets along with these people) Sometimes I join her on a trip, sometimes a friend will go along with her. Most of the time she orders room service, chats with friends, scrolls on her phone or watches tv on her lap top

Dd rarely drinks and will go out with the group occasionally but she says it gets boring going out with a bunch of drunk people. The idea that she would have to spend every evening with these people would have her saying no to the work. She is an independent contractor so if the company would rather place a contractor who will get drunk with the other contractors over the work produced then that is their prerogative

If the company are going to be this uptight about who people are seated with at dinner, what happens when another table joins them.

On one of her nights away that dd did go to dinner with colleagues they were discussing their independent experience working with a certain company based in the south east and the MDs expectations (whilst they were hundreds of miles away from where this company was) and the next table turned around and told them their stories
They got into an hilarious discussion about the most outlandish expectation this MD had and how much more work they were expected to do for no extra cost

Oh no, can't have that. How dare someone get a free "good thing".

She wasn’t offered to go for dinner with colleagues. One colleague asks her if she’d like to join him & his wife who isn’t a colleague for dinner.

And that’s in the broader context of all these plus 1s all going away with each other on work trips that they all know each other. So much so that the OP think her presence contributes to a company she doesn’t work for. And that’s where potential HR issue arise, where people not getting on could be a potential HR issue.

Not the point at all though is it. I could be give n a bottle of wine by a supplier, costs the company nothing but I’m not allowed to take it because of the very strict zero tolerance conflicts of interests policy.

Bringing spouses on work trips can raise potential HR issues. Similar to a conflicts of interest policy, up to a company to decide what approach to adopt.

The company I work for has close to zero perks. It is slightly grating sometimes but that’s life. It’s a job at the end of the day.

That's your life though. As you've seen, this differs quite widely across companies and sectors.

This.

I wouldn't dream of taking a spouse on a business trip, and my co would be very unimpressed. Half the purpose of going is to build relationships with customers, suppliers or colleagues from other sites, surely.

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

There is something really odd about this statement.
Making the complaint that the wives supposedly suspect her of being unprofessional and inappropriate and then demanding that the company make sure there are no witnesses around to watch her

Maybe someone else can explain it better.

I suspect an accusation that one of her male colleagues are unprofessional or inappropriate to her on one of these work trips is on the cards and would be having a 24 /36/48hour recordings of their time away just incase she does accuse one of them and they can refer back

I know that but so what?!

This company allowed this or overlooked it, and now they’ve changed that policy.

Thats the nature of employment.

I’ve had my pension changed from defined benefit, my place of work changed, my working from home days changed while being reminded that it’s a benefit that can be withdrawn (and will be I expect company wide fairly soon) etc etc

And I’m soon to be replaced by a robot.

That unfortunately is life.

Depends. What if you or your husband were seconded to New York or Tokyo for three months? Would you still think it inappropriate to join them for a period of time?

That’s a “secondment” not a business trip. It’s not comparable to a 1-2 day audit.

Okay so what is the length of time working away when a spousal visit becomes reasonable?

That isn’t the key issue to me, the key one is how entrenched plus ones seem to be in a company they don’t work for.

From a personal marriage level up to individuals to decide how their marriage works best for both of them. But I think either one says the other “needs” them for a couple of nights isn’t healthy.

Well if you’ve read the OP’s updates the key issue seems to have moved beyond the plus one issue and into a bigger potential ‘harassment’ complaint with the two men involved being asked to think about anything they might have said/done which could be interpreted as inappropriate.

I have read the OP’s updates.

And perhaps they did say something which was open to interpretation, or perhaps it’s malicious or maybe the woman thinks something was inappropriate but it isn’t by objective standards. Who knows.

It’s still odd to me that the OP thinks her constant presence on these trips is good for the company. And I can see how a social circle of plus ones on work trips could feel isolating to a new employee or someone not in the gang.

If (like me) you feel strongly about ChatGPT / AI on MN, please come and say so on this thread under Site Stuff. MN monitors the Site Stuff board.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5490256-posts-written-by-chat-gpt-and-other-ai?page=1

You saying “Allowed” to is strange.

The room is already provided and the spouse incurs no extra expense to the company. We often did this, I did my own thing while he worked/attended conferences/ dinners. I paid for my flights when needed and we sometimes extended the hotel booking to have a few days holiday after.
Totally normal. You’re not owned by your employers “out of hours”.

Surely depends on what you're doing! When I was working away from base it was often to get a job done. Other colleagues working there weren't all necessarily staying away from home as they lived nearer and the people we were working for would have been horrified if I'd suggested improving relationships of an evening 🤣🤣🤣

I think it’s more likely, if it’s a male dominated profession, that she’s struggled with colleagues freezing her out because her face doesn’t fit and so finds networking, finding a mentor, getting the better opportunities etc. harder as she doesn’t have the personal relationships with colleagues that the male employees do. She’d hoped to build some of that camaraderie on this trip and then the wives tag along and she feels Othered again. And while she’s wrong in her interpretation of why the wives tagged along this time, her feelings of being frozen out of a boys club could be very valid.

Nobody needs to be friends with colleagues though.

And behaving like this isn’t going to make her any, is it?

I didn’t say otherwise. I just don’t see the need to demonize her to argue that the company shouldn’t be changing the policy.

It all feels vaguely reminiscent of how (male) historians like to vilify powerful women in history ...if I didn't know better, I would suggest internalised misogyny

..

From a HR perspective it’s not about being friends. It’s about any perception of exclusion, unfair or discriminatory treatment.

She has certainly excluded herself now.

Which it wasn’t. One of the men invited her to dinner and she refused.