Forced to attend customer entertainment outside of hours

[dadoftwins]

Hi, I’m hoping for some advice on a work issue that has cropped up today.
I’m employed in an office based sales role, and the expectation is that when we have visitors or customers that I take them out for an evening meal.
This is not paid, not detailed in my contract and not normally any problem.
I recently had twins who came quite prematurely, had an extended stay in hospital but are home now and doing ok. My 2 weeks statutory paternity leave (plus the extra holiday I took) has now finished and I’m back to the office full time.
My line manager is now insisting that I accompany another colleague and take a customer out for entertainment later this week.
I am completely exhausted from night feeds, and it’s enough of a struggle to go into the office normally, let alone extending that working day (as let’s face it, talking shop with customers isn’t exactly a leisure activity).
I’m feeling totally stressed and harassed at a really tough time, any decent company (and manager of people) would show a little understanding of my current situation, but I feel like I’m being backed into a corner and forced to choose between my job and my family.
Can anyone advise where I stand in terms of refusing to go out for a meal with the customer?

[dadoftwins]

Sorry,hadn’t realised I’d posted this multiple times- could an admin please delete this thread?

[ULA]

I appreciate that in a sales role there is the inevitable times when clients need to be taken out which can sometimes included an evening, even if there is nothing specific in the contract about this time. Since there is nothing in the contract you could argue that you are not required to do this and especially at this time when you are supporting in the care of your premature twins.

My concern is that your line manager may view this as a "reasonable instruction" and may say that by not attending your are refusing to comply with this instruction. However you could point out that there is another colleague who is happy to go so it is not as if the client will not be looked after.

Do you have an HR department or someone more senior you can speak to about the situation?

[obscure]

Your employer could reasonably argue that by attending previous similar events you have accepted that it is part of the job. I think it would also be hard to demonstrate that this was not "industry standard" for pretty much every similar sales role.

Having said that it would be nice if businesses got over this macho "must push through the pain" nonsense and made reasonable allowances for staff during difficult times.