47-year-old employee on business trip turns down dinner with coworkers, boss threatens consequences: 'It was outside work hours, unpaid, and not scheduled'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Aug 15, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Going on a mandatory business trip is the adult version of going on a school field trip, except it's more likely to be a torturous experience. Unlike school field trips, where there tends to be either an educational and intellectual purpose or an adventurous experience that keeps students from getting stir crazy, business trips are much harder to justify. There are the expenses, the logistical, and the social pressures that come with traveling alongside your managers and coworkers.

In this instance, we have a 47-year-old businessman who was typically a fully remote employee, and he liked it that way. He often only saw his coworkers over Zoom, and his job didn't necessarily require in-person interaction in order for his central tasks and responsibilities to be completed. Unfortunately for him, he had a manager who felt differently about the relationship between productivity, team morale, and in-person work. While he didn't start forcing the employee to come to the office regularly, as he lived in a different state with a family, the manager did require the employee to attend a week-long business conference. 

After endless meetings, lunches, dinners, and after-work drinks, the employee was ready to go home. It was his final day, and he planned to FaceTime his wife from the hotel while they both had dinner because it had been several days since they got to catch up. However, just when he had wrapped up the work day, the employee was pressured by his manager and coworkers to stick around for one final group dinner. When the employee tried to push back, claiming that he had plans with his wife and was not expecting there to be another work event, the boss put his foot down and threatened consequences if the employee were to back out. Seriously?! As if this one dinner meant so much to the company? Talk about a waste of tension!

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  • "AITA for telling my coworkers that I didn't want to go to dinner with them again because I prefer my wife's company to theirs?"

    A man in a business suit smiles in profile holding his cell phone in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • If there is one wholesome part of this story, it's the employee's relationship with his wife. Who can't admire their cute makeshift remote dinner after spending time apart from one another? The fact that dinner with his wife was an important and necessary reason to skip out on a work dinner at least says something about where this dude's priorities are. Unfortunately, his boss made it difficult for him to say no.

  • Unfortunately, I [47M] was roped into going to a work conference recently. I am a remote worker, but sadly I was told that I needed to attend a conference that many of my coworkers go to each year due to how integral my duties were to this year's presentation, I suppose.
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  • I am not buddy-buddy with any of my coworkers or my boss, but I am professional with them. This was the first work conference I had ever been to, so I did not realize how much these things consume the entirety of the time spent there. The first three nights of the conference there were different dinners I "had" to attend
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  • after typical work hours and when over 8 hours had been spent doing work related things at the conference already. Now, I don't really mind attending the actual conference that much, what I mind is the expectation that I spend any more time with my colleagues than necessary. In
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  • my opinion, if I've spent 8:30 - 5 at a work conference with coworkers attending work-related sessions and giving a work- related presentation, past 5 o'clock I am no longer "at work." I
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  • was already rather peeved that this was not the expectation at the start, but I was at least informed of these three different formal/scheduled dinners once the conference schedule was released.
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  • The fourth and final night of the conference I expected would be completely mine because there was no conference-wide scheduled dinner. As such, the night before when I called my wife, I asked her if she wanted to eat dinner together (i.e. video call each other and eat together, then spend as many hours as possible chatting before going to bed), and she said that sounded lovely.
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  • We made plans to call at 7 our time (6 where the conference was), and I was really looking forward to it, as obviously I love her and her company.
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  • Unfortunately, at lunch on the final day of the conference, my coworkers (my boss included) mentioned going to a specific restaurant. They asked if I was excited to go, and I said I was not going, but I hoped they enjoyed themselves. They acted like I smacked them, and asked what I meant. I told them I'd made plans to call my wife and eat dinner with her.
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  • I was then informed that, apparently, there is some tradition of all my coworkers eating dinner together the last night. I said I wasn't informed and we had already eaten dinner together every other night, but I hoped they enjoyed themselves.
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  • My boss then said it was something I had to attend, then some of my coworkers agreed and said it was an important part of the conference.
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  • I told my boss and coworkers that it was outside work hours, unpaid, and not scheduled, plus I prefer my wife's company to theirs, so I was not going. They then told me I was being r de and an a hole, and that I should have expected that we would all dine together the final night. I
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  • said that was ridiculous, but my boss implied that not attending would have repercussions, so I called my wife and apologized to her, and sadly attended this stupid dinner. AITA?
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  • A man in a business suit smiles in profile while speaking on his cell phone in one hand while holding a suitcase in the other.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Cultural_Section_... incredibly naive but NTA, that's how confrences go. more career moves are made at those dinners than in the conference room believe it or not
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  • Kvxyo. I want to say NAH but just want to also point out you're slowly burning bridges and causing dramas that may impact your professional career all for the sake of 1 evening. S k it up, you are a remote worker so you barely have to deal with colleagues except for these rare occasions.
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  • DoraTheUrbanExpl... Soft YTA. Yeah it s ks being a salaried employee and having to travel in and do all this social cr p. I'm a remote employee too so I can really feel where you're coming from.
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  • That being said- you're a remote employee. This was an opportunity for you to network, show you're a human, team player etc. Lots of older execs don't like remote work hence why they do these silly week long in office type things. They're happy they get to see you're real, and you get to keep working from home.
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  • Your little stunt might have cost you a future promotion as now you don't look like a team player at all and you aren't taking the little time. you have to get to know your co workers face to face. Obviously you'd rather hang out with your wife- but telling them that was an AH move. Best of luck OP. Hope they don't hold it against you!
    via Misanthropic_Lemon

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workplace-stories employee work stories toxic-workplace job work business trip overworked-employees Horrible Bosses employment toxic-work-environment
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