my employees ignore my wife (2024)

A reader writes:

I own a small business, with about seven people working in our local office. My wife runs accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and handles all the books. Besides my wife and me, there is my assistant and four IT techs. We are all within the 25-36 age range, with my wife and I the oldest.

We used to be in a very small office, so my wife would work from home. Early last year, we moved into a new office where there finally was space for everyone. But then Covid hit, so my wife only started working in the office in August. Besides her regular tasks, she also now takes care of things around the office such as ordering coffee, milk, etc.

My wife, my assistant, and I work in one area of the office, while everyone else works in a different large room. However, the other employees need to walk past our area a lot, especially when they come to talk to me. And we have to pass their area a lot when we go to the kitchen, etc.

My wife is very friendly. She walks into the office in the morning and says “good morning” and she is ignored. If she passes an employee and says “hi,” 95% of the time she is ignored. The only employee who says good morning on a regular basis is my assistant. But they have no problem coming to her to tell her that we need more milk, or if they have a business-related request. My wife says that “it’s ironic that the office that she feels the most uncomfortable in is her own office.” When she used to work at other offices, people were friendly with her. And the two of the employees who don’t work out of the office itself but stop by once in a while to pick up things do say “hi” to her when they walk past her office.

I thought at first that it may be because they are intimidated by the boss’s wife. But while she may not be the most outgoing person, she has a very easy, friendly personality. And shouldn’t they be more afraid of getting on the bad side of the boss’s wife?

To be honest, sometimes when she is under pressure for a deadline, she can be super-focused at work and not that talkative, but when she says a direct good morning, there should be at least a response.

It has reached a point where she does not want to come to the office anymore because of all the times she is ignored.

To add insult to injury, it happens with clients too. My wife sits in in the office just next to my office, with her door wide open. Directly outside my office is where my assistant sits. A lot of times, when clients visit me, they of course acknowledge my assistant as she is sitting right outside my door. But they almost never acknowledge my wife. This is even if my wife is standing near my assistant when they walk in. And a lot of these clients know that she is my wife. One morning, the client walked in, said “good morning” to my assistant, and completely ignored my wife who was standing four feet away.

Any ideas or suggestions? How can my wife be more comfortable in her own office? Why in the world is she being ignored?

I think you both are taking this far too personally!

The most likely scenario is that people are just focused on their own stuff, not deliberately freezing her out.

But it’s also possible that this is about the fact that she’s the boss’s wife. The social dynamics with the boss’s spouse are often going to be weird. That’s just the reality of having your spouse work in your business.

Or who knows, it’s also possible that they do dislike her! But since actively snubbing the boss’s spouse generally isn’t the smartest career move — and would take pretty bad judgment — my guess is people are just caught up in their own work. Maybe they don’t feel terribly warmly toward her, but that’s okay.

If I’m wrong and these are active attempts to snub her, then something has gone very wrong: Has she alienated them in some way or done something that’s made them feel their trust was violated? Has her tendency to be “super focused” translated as rude? I don’t know what it is, but if people are going out of their way to be rude to the boss’s spouse, something is going on.

But the fact that she feels clients are also snubbing her makes me think that no one is, and instead she’s just reading way too much into how people do or don’t greet her. It’s very unlikely that your clients are deliberately ostracizing her! It’s much more likely that they’re there to get some business done, and they greet your assistant because she is your assistant and sits right outside your office (and may have been the one to set up their appointment, etc.) but they don’t greet your wife because she’s not part of what they’re there for.

If this is not true about clients, that would mean your wife has somehow alienated them to the point that they are deliberately ignoring her, which would be an extreme response … and if your wife is pissing off both clients and staff to the point that they are pointedly freezing her out, you both need to figure out what’s causing that. But that’s probably not the case; it’s far more likely that your clients — and everyone else — are just focused on their own stuff, and she is taking that too personally.

Ultimately, you just can’t have this kind of social expectation or hurt feelings when you have your spouse working in your business. Bringing a spouse in only works if you’re both able to stay low-key about it and accept that the dynamic might be a little weird for everyone. If your employees are doing their jobs well and are reasonably pleasant to work with, they’re meeting their obligations to your business, and the best thing you and your wife can do is to not stress about greetings.

P.S. When Jennifer of Captain Awkward and I were looking at letters for our collaboration last week, she pointed out this could be a Sixth Sense situation, and that is worth considering as well.