Spouse Involvement?

Was your GP/Area pro-spouse when it came to company happy hours etc?

Always invited? Never Invited? or.. Are you kidding me?

spouse was barely invited, and only when it was unavoidable.

I was there a few months - my boyfriend was only invited to one outing - the first week I worked there. Then after that he was not allowed. When I think about it I NEVER met anyones significant other. Eventually every couple broke up - or those strong couples that did stay together ended up quiting to save their relationship. The hookups within the company happen after almost every happy hour - some new fling - it's crazy. I now work in an office where everyone - and I mean everyone is happily married and there are only two outings (Happy hours) per year and not only are spouses invited but so are the kids!! Enterprise would never go for that.

My girl friend never wanted to come because everyone was so phony and nothing other than work was discussed.

Well when I was a BM and then later a L3 I always invited significant others and children and made sure the location was at a "family" friendly place. Of course it had to have beer etc. I always figured if the spouse/significant other wasn't happy then the employee was never going to have a shot at a career.

Afterwards the "swinging singles" usually went out somewhere else. I always made sure they were on thier dime and I didn't saction it or condone it.

I can say that spouses, significant others, and even friends were all very welcome at our happy hours. Ours tended to be a lot of fun, the only downside being that sometimes significant others and friends would get a little overwhelmed with the enterprise jargon. I will also say that when I moved to car sales and was invited to other area happy hours in my marketing pod they were not the same. Those were by and large an area meeting with very few "outsiders" in attendance. I came expecting the type of area happy hour we had when I was in rental, I found out all ARM's are not created equal. After an hour or so of pep talk and propaganda I'd try to slide out unnoticed, painful.

Wow, that is so great that family was invited! The Vermont group was very different. Perhaps if it was more like yours people would stick it out past age 25!

I have two friends who work for group 10 in Maine. I've never really gotten a chance to ask about the atmosphere in the ME,NH,VT. I always assummed it was toned down a bit and more family friendly, much like that part of the country as a whole. Sounds like your experience was not like this at all.

A lot of the Vermont branches are chill - I worked in the Burlington area which is very much a party/college town. The only people over 25 when I was there was the Area Manager, 1 Asst. Manger and 1 Manager. The Asst. Manger was the only one who was married and he quit. The rest were all 25 and under and not married (most had significant others). Smaller branches (St. J, Rutland, etc.) I think may have been a bit more relaxed and not quite the pressure to party and attend happy hours. But in Burlington - you had better party hardy and leave your other half at home - very tough to deal with.

The area of the country I was in is also packed with 21-30 yr olds the majority of which are not from there originally but move their after college. The make up of our areas was very similar to yours, everyone under 25 except the the ARM and one BM and they were the only two that were married. The happy hours were no doubt full of hook ups and there was definately people who got in trouble with coworkers. I guess the only difference was people who wanted to bring significant others were encouraged, and everyone had a bunch of friends in that age group who worked close by so the prospect of free drinks coupled with the reputation for these happy hours to be great hook up scenes always led to a decent size group of friends of employees.