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.

If people are too welded at the hip to their partners to be able to cope with not seeing them for the night, that's not the fault of people who are single, or whose partner's actually have their own job.

But in this case it's the single person complaining that the married colleagues won't hang out with her.

Fwiw I think there's probably more to the story than OP knows. Like PPs said, the company might just be throwing the new colleague under the bus.

But in any case, surely the point is that people shouldn't be obligated to hang out with colleagues during their free time. They can meet a friend, video call a family member, watch Netflix back at the hotel room, whatever they want.

Agreed on both counts. I work in tech sales as a field rep so travel often and it would never occur to me to bring my husband along. The only time that's really done is for President's Club trips, which are a vacation to reward us for high performance and spouses/partners/guests are invited by the company. Still an odd conclusion to draw, though.

This is such a spiteful comment. It's not about being 'welded at the hip' and not being able to 'cope'- some people do just actually like and enjoy spending time with their partners and massively prefer it to spending their free time with colleagues.

Yes but there should be space in our lives to do both,

The older I get, the less.I want to spend free time with my colleagues!

I find it all rather odd that there is an openness for spouses to attend.

I travel frequently for client visits etc and it has never occurred to me to ask DP to tag along (even when travelling alone).

I also have a black tie gala I am attending tomorrow night, where spouses were invited, but I prefer to keep my private life out of my work life.

My DP wouldnt have time to anyway - he has his own job.

DP may also need to go to Texas for the week later in the year for work, and even if I was invited, I wouldnt want to go.

I find it all rather weird.

For me it varies from business trip to business trip. I work in oil and gas so I will not exactly be taking my wife along to see some clients at an offshore platform fabrication yard in the arse end of nowhere. Other trips are wall to wall all day meetings that dont finish till late doors so not suitable either. If it is just me and I heading off to some more agreeable European city my wife and I would check logistics and see if she can join me at the tale end of my trip where we can bolt on cheeky weekend away. Sometimes there is a one day overlap between my work and her coming out but she can head out and see the sights and hook up with me later.

I do too if I’m honest I find it very antiquated, particularly as it’s mainly women tagging along, you seldom see men wanting to go, and are often concerned it’s a controlling thing if they did.

i can’t imagine wanting to go on my husbands business trups with him and I’d be a bit horrified if he said he was coming with me. It would feel like he was coming to the office with me.

as much as I clearly prefer his company to my colleagues. That doesn’t mean I will shun my colleagues so I can always be with him. And I’d not want him to do the same for me, socialising with colleagues is an important part of many roles. It’s where relationships are formed, where issues can be informally discussed,etc.

I just can’t imagine ever wanting to be involved to that level.

Yes, this raised a flag for me, too. It sounds like a bit of a game of telephone and not particularly plausible. It's an odd complaint at the onset, made over the weekend, and HR changes a longstanding company policy that quickly, over one complaint? And OP's husband has been given access to the email voicing the complaint? I don't think OP has been given a fully accurate picture.

what happened and caused it all ?

I know it’s hard to imagine, but some of us like our partners.

If this is a genuine question…
In places I’ve worked before the unwritten rule would be a week. It’s expected that a couple of times a year most people can be apart from their partners (however much in love they are) for a couple of days in a premier inn in Bristol, or a Mon-Fri away every couple of years for a training course. If it were over a week in Europe or the US then colleagues could approach managers and check in if ok to bring partners / tack on a holiday and this would usually be fine.