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.

With his wife on a work trip. A point which has been done to death on this thread!!

This is the the most ridiculous AI post. Please stop. It’s annoying.

Annoying, or wrong ?

Both. It’s a chat forum. Use your brain and think for yourself.

It was quite obvious it was pure AI.

After reading every post, one thing everyone seems to be missing is how completely unprofessional the company is. Not because of the plus ones/the hotels - that’s a whole different thing.

The fact she has spoken to management and made what should be a confidential disclosure to them (and let’s be honest, nobody knows what the disclosure was beyond feeling uncomfortable) and within a day or two it’s been passed as a new rule, blamed as her being the reason why it’s changed my management and put her into the firing line from this pack of Stepford wives. She isn’t the victim in this, she could have merely been having a chat with her Manager about how the trip was, expressed surprise that plus ones were there and they’ve taken it out of context and blamed her for everything. It more sounds like the company wanted to change the decision and have used her as a reason why. If I was her I’d say my trust and confidence is gone in the company after making a disclosure.

The other thing that gets me is OP’s insistence that having a group of wives there makes the company better - she isn’t part of the company full stop. It’s of no bearing as to what she thinks she does for the company as it’s her own interpretation.

I work in HR and book travel for our employees within the U.K. and I’ve never had an employee ask for their partner to stay overnight. I didn’t even know it was a thing! Especially when they stay in Premier Inn’s, shattered from a day at work and just want to eat dinner and go to bed.

Yes, I agree with this. Whatever the company decided to do about the rather strange complaint, it ought to have the courage of it's convictions and not be all apologetic about it's chosen policy.

The only explanation I can think of that would make any kind of sense would be that she's been shagging somebody she shouldn't have, and when he decided to take his wife on trips instead of shagging her, she got pissed and threatened to out him.

In theory they could, but rooms are booked for single occupancy so we get a cheaper rate on our business booker. Logistically how that would be audited I have no idea so it could have happened.

As I said, I’m more concerned with how inappropriately the company has acted blaming one person for the rule changing and throwing her to the wolves. I can understand why she felt the way she did, and possibly taken aback when discovering partners were staying. But that’s not a reason for her to be treated the way she is both by her colleagues AND wives who don’t even work for the company.

I think that posts which are an obvious derail do get deleted. Repetitive comments (cancel the cheque) may just be a facet of humanity.

Yes, sounds like she may have felt like an outsider on her own work trip and being new would have made it worse.
I also wonder if one of the males have also made a joke about the wives keeping an eye on them in her hearing.

We do have a team environment and our employees who do have time away from home generally do for anything from one night up to weeks. They work together in the office and they do generally socialise together - however there isn’t an expectation to on our side. I’ve done both sides, eating in my hotel room and nights where I’ve had dinner with colleagues. It’s a personal preference.

The way I’ve interpreted the post is that she hasn’t realised their wives are there and potentially thought she’d be third wheeling by accepting their invitation, which I would feel the same and can’t disagree. The issue comes when the men are socialising after hours with colleagues (each other) but putting her in a position whereby she doesn’t feel comfortable attending with them because their wives are also there.

Reminds me of that program Bewitched when Samantha always seemed to be hosting dinner parties for her husband's company.

Well it's not like it was disguised, is it ?

No one has managed to point out where it was wrong (yet). They are more than welcome as I didn't claim it was definitive. Just interesting that it seemed to find some points in the OP worthy of note.

I'm quite underwhelmed with "AI" (it isn't). However, it has it's uses.

I work in HR and book travel for our employees within the U.K.

I don't think this thread was meant for you then ..

I work in HR and book travel for our employees within the U.K. and I’ve never had an employee ask for their partner to stay overnight.

That’s because most people wouldn’t bother asking HR, they’d just do it.

And if they did that’s on them to pay any surcharges from changing from single occupancy to double. It’s not some huge gotcha that they wouldn’t tell us. We don’t have any rule against it.

The issue again is that the two men who work together were socialising together after work, with each other. The company put her in a position whereby she didn’t know about the rule with partners coming along, she assumed the dinner would be her and her two colleagues who she has a working relationship with to find out it’s not, it’s them and their partners who she doesn’t know. Therefore making her feel uncomfortable with the situation and turned it down.
Nobody knows what happened after, only that the company have behaved appallingly openly blaming her for a rule change and making her a leper to not only staff, but their partners as well.

Meeting was today I hope Op will update.

The men weren’t socialising together @thelakes0310 one was going to a restaurant, one to the pub.

I can understand woman speaking to her boss after trip saying she assumed plan was for colleagues to eat together and could they clarify the spouse policy etc but to go for a full complaint immediately with implication of untoward behaviour seems shortsighted if she wanted to socialise with colleagues going forward. Realistically neither will be inclined to have anything to do with her outside work hours in case she makes a complaint.

I don’t believe there was a complaint, IMO. If there was it was extremely reckless of the company to disclose the fact it was her who made the ‘complaint’ and nobody knows what the content of that was.

It sounds to me like it’s all been blown out of proportion. A new starter assumes the team go for dinner together, on a catch up to her manager she’s made a comment about it, this has then been blown up to the point the company are now blaming her for the withdrawal of partners staying with them on work trips. That’s what it sounds like to me. OP’s husband could be spinning any sort of story as to why, the only people who will every truly know are the woman and the management team and if word for word what the OP has said is true - I’d be raising a grievance about the conduct of the management and what they’ve disclosed to people who shouldn’t be privy as to why the decision has been made. Like the company doesn’t have the balls to say itself it made the decision so it’s a singular woman’s fault.

If people don't have partners that's not the problem/fault of the people with partners.