Ask a Manager--Husband Won't Let Wife Travel

[GeoBQn]

Ask a Manager is an advice blog for work-related issues.  There was a letter today from a manager who promoted a female employee to a position that requires occasional travel.  Suddenly, the employee said that she can't travel for work because her religion requires her to obey her husband, and her husband doesn't want her to travel.

In what I am sure is just a coincidence, her husband also recently decided that she shouldn't "have to" drive, so he now drops her off and picks her up from work every day, which is causing many problems.

http://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/my-employee-is-refusing-to-travel-because-her-husband-said-she-cant.html

[Howl]

The response from lawyers consulted by Ask A Manager is scary -- basically saying that the law is so murky that anytime someone says  'Sincerely held religious belief', every body takes a shit and lies down in it*. 

*I first heard this wonderfully pithy phrase from a guy who grew up on West Texas. It does get the point across, but I haven't had occasion to use in dog's years.  Thanks, FJ!  

And more specifically, the husband is using religion to cover up emotional abuse -- the red flags are flying and snapping smartly in the breeze. 

 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

He took away her car??!! SMH

I wonder if hubby has a job at all, or is self employed?  Since he's able to drive her to and from work and show up every day before quitting time -- he must have a flexible schedule.

I suspect his next commandment to her will be that she cannot work with, or for, men.  She's buying his "religious reason".  but he's simply using that as a cover for his emotional abuse.

I hope she snaps out of it soon.

 

[Hmmm_idolatry]

My advice to her would be to get rid of the husband.  Husband sounds like a controlling lunatic.  

[desertvixen]

Pretty sure that "queens" don't have their car taken away from them...  Good Lord, I thought my issues with Soldiers were bad.

[ViolaSebastian]

12 minutes ago, desertvixen said:

Pretty sure that "queens" don't have their car taken away from them...  Good Lord, I thought my issues with Soldiers were bad.

That caught my eye too. Apparently queens don't drive, but they do work. And something tells me the fruits of that work goes into a joint account. 

[feministxtian]

3 hours ago, desertvixen said:

Pretty sure that "queens" don't have their car taken away from them...  Good Lord, I thought my issues with Soldiers were bad.

This "queen" drives whichever vehicle is running at the time and as soon as my car gets fixed...yeah...I'd LOVE to see Mr. Xtian TRY to keep me from driving...hahahahahahaha! Not that he' ever try though...he's not that dumb. 

[Maggie Mae]

i wonder if it is fake. Ask a Manager gets trolled sometimes, 

[Jencendiary]

4 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

i wonder if it is fake. Ask a Manager gets trolled sometimes, 

Sadly, this sounds plausible - whether it's DV or 'sincerely held religious belief' masking DV.

[GeoBQn]

People in the comments are wondering why she took the promotion if she knew she couldn't perform all the duties.  My read on the situation is that the husband didn't enact his "travel ban" until after she accepted the promotion (and found out he would have to do his own damn chores once in a while.)

[RosyDaisy]

If Mr. Daisy pulled that shit, it would not end well. Thank God he's not a controlling, abusive asshole.

[VodouDoll]

My husband and I had a spirited debate about this question last night. He thought she should be fired out of hand, but I was more in the camp of telling her she has to figure out how to get to the weekly meetings (Uber,  bus, her husband who apparently has unlimited time to drive her around, it doesn't really matter how), and maybe redistributing some of her raise to the person doing the other travel for her, or bumping her back down to her old position if it's still available. If her belief is sincere they have to accommodate it if they can, and it sounds like they can, since they are. It's just a matter of making it financially fair for the colleagues picking up her slack.

If her husband's demands got non-accommodatable, like she can't talk on the phone or walk through doors or must wear bunny slippers, then that's another issue, but for now, I think they should try to work with her.

[Mercer]

Since the travel is only occasional, it should be reasonable to accommodate her choice not to do so, but she shouldn't get paid for work she doesn't perform. If she is not traveling, the pay associated with the travel should be going to the employee who is actually doing so. 

I don't think it's even worth wading into the swamp of what constitutes a sincerely held religious belief over one overnight per quarter. (If the travel was frequent, I think the employer would have a good argument that she is incapable of performing her job, but as it is I think it would be a stretch for the employer to claim they have no way to accommodate.) Her salary just needs to reflect the work actually performed, and she should not be getting paid for work someone else is doing for her.

As for the other concerns, I think the immediate problem just needs to be addressed directly. If she's being inattentive because her husband is waiting, then make clear that attentiveness until work is over is a job requirement. If she's skipping necessary meetings, make clear that attendance is mandatory and she is responsible for working out her transportation as she sees fit. Etc. etc. Those are basic work performance issues rather than religious issues, and should be addressed accordingly rather than allowing the waters to get too muddied.

[Jencendiary]

If it were just the monthly/quarterly trips, I think I might be willing to work around it. The real problem seems to be that her husband also doesn't allow her to drive, so she misses the weekly local meetings. So, at least once a week , one of her subordinates has to do leave their work in-office to do her job.

Offhand, I'd want to demote her back to her previous position.

[SoybeanQueen]

Right, from an HR standpoint, I suspect that the tack should be "your job requires you to attend these meetings. How you get there is not of our concern." If she does not attend, she gets whatever warning is company policy. If she declines to attend again, follow through on company policies regarding subsequent warnings, and eventually firing if she cannot fulfill the duties she accepted when hired. It's not a religious issue at all, because no one said she had to drive herself to the meeting. She just has to attend it.

[Mercer]

4 hours ago, SoybeanQueen said:

It's not a religious issue at all, because no one said she had to drive herself to the meeting. She just has to attend it.

Exactly.

It's an extremely standard job expectation in any line of work that the employee will present themselves at their workplace at their assigned time. How they accomplish that is the employee's responsibility, not the employer's. They can drive, or take the city bus, or catch a ride with a friend, or take a taxi... or parachute in from a plane, for all the boss cares. They just have to be there.

If she chooses not to drive, she is responsible for finding another means to get to work at the time she's supposed to be there - including meetings. Reasonable accommodation does not extend to paying her for time she is not present or allowing her to miss unlimited work time with no repercussions. 

The employer can't (and shouldn't) make her drive, but the attendance rules still apply to her, and the burden is on her to figure out how to work around her self-imposed limitation, not on the workplace to ignore absenteeism.

[EmiGirl]

Some people have suggested sending someone else, but it's possible the promotion was to something like project lead where she would need to be in direct communication with the clients on a regular basis that one of her minions wouldn't have the skill set or information or authority for the meetings to be productive. At that point she would no longer actually be doing her job as the manager. 

[Mercer]

47 minutes ago, EmiGirl said:

Some people have suggested sending someone else, but it's possible the promotion was to something like project lead where she would need to be in direct communication with the clients on a regular basis that one of her minions wouldn't have the skill set or information or authority for the meetings to be productive. At that point she would no longer actually be doing her job as the manager. 

That is true, but the original article said that sending someone else has been their solution, so I don't think that's the case in this particular situation.

[Four is Enough]

Our family owns, currently, five vehicles. *I* am the only one who has keys to all five, because *I* drive whatever vehicle nobody else is using that day, if I need a vehicle. *I* also get all the cars maintained.. so I have to deal with MEN on a business basis. What a heathen I am.

[Jasmar]

The domestic abuse in this case makes me hyperventilate a little. Men don't have to be physically violent to incite fear and learned helplessness in their wives (substitute gender, partner, SO, etc.). Even women who seem super confident and competent in other areas of their lives will accede to controlling men. It caseem baffling, but it's just so normal for abuse victims to compartmentalize in order to survive mentally.

I know I'm preaching to the choir. But it makes me feel better to say it out loud, having lived that way for over twenty years. I hope there are people in her work environment who understand DV and can give her solid support, even if she's not ready to see it for what it is.

[JMarie]

My guess is either DV or the wife already went on one or two business trips and the husband couldn't handle the kids/housework by himself.

[Jasmar]

DV is about control. If he can't handle the house, and his response is to demand she not drive, that's about control. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

i once worked with a man who sounds like the husband.  Over the space of 2-3 years we were all treated (not) to stories of what he was doing to "protect" his wife and keep her and the family "safe".  

It started small -- always going to the grocery store with her, or accompanying her on errands.  Moved to driving her on errands. Then he did all the errands so she could concentrate on the home and family on weekends. Morphed into she didn't need a car because he did all the errands. She arranged to car pool to work, but he stopped that because he wasn't sure the other person was a safe driver.  So he drove her. Eventually he made her quit her job because it was too hard to drop her at work and pick her up everyday.  Besides she needed to concentrate on being a wife and mother.

Then he decided that the school bus/carpooling for the kids to school wasn't safe so he drove them.  Then that stopped because it was too hard to coordinate the logistics so he decided the wife should home school. Then he pulled the kids out of sports and activities because only he was as safe driver so other parents couldn't be trusted. 

He used to call her at random times during the day -- supposedly to make sure she and the kids were "safe". He told us she was required to answer in 3 rings or he would call the police.  Because if she didn't he "knew" that something was wrong.  She didn't have a cell phone either and there was 1 landline  in the house (the details this guy shared).

I never met the woman, but I knew, just knew that this was a DV situation, although as far as I knew not physical.  The guy was seemingly normal -- well ..... except for the control issues, and wasn't a fundy. He left the company after 3 years and we all never heard of him again.

I've always hoped the wife and kids got away from him somehow.

Side note -- the work world puts you in contact with some of the oddest people.

[imokit]

@Red Hair, Black Dress3 rings to answer the phone? What if she was having a poo?

[Mercer]

Conversely, I knew a lady who would use "My husband won't let me" as a default excuse for anything she couldn't be bothered with but didn't want to look bad for just refusing. (Not just speculation; she admitted this was her strategy.) They were moderately fundie but husband was pretty passive and would just "say no" to anything the wife didn't want to do. They were of retirement age so I never saw her in a work setting, but my guess is that if she didn't feel like going out of town or showing up for meetings, she would use the same excuse that she did to get out of baby showers or church volunteering.

Not to say this couldn't be a domestic violence/controlling husband situation - it could be, and there are a lot of red flags here. There just isn't enough information in the article to be certain it's the husband's fault rather than the wife using him as an excuse.