Disastrous Teams meeting - is it as bad as I think?

Ask yourself the following: do you think any of the attendees would trust you to be present in an important meeting with a customer, or head office, or... ?
I certainly wouldn't, specially when you have only been working for one week and you are endeavouring to create a great first impression. What is it going to look like 6 months down the line?
Attending a meeting in a sofa, being unable to control your pet, etc... are traits of someone who does not take their job seriously. And it is insulting for the rest of the people who actually make the effort to find an appropriate environment to work.
If your reputation is something that matters to you, and it should, I suggest you apologise tomorrow first thing. And make sure that you don't make these silly mistakes ever again.

I don't understand why people are saying they'd find this funny. It's totally unprofessional. It wouldn't even be particularly funny in a non-professional setting. If I witnessed this on a call I'd be wondering what on earth we were doing employing this person. OP, I would expect your manager to have a discussion with you around expectations, professionalism and confidentiality.

Pets are generally viewed positively by colleagues as they’re cute. Husbands - less so!

Seriously though, if this was a work day for you and you were working remotely, you need a proper office set up with a door you can shut to focus. If you dont have this, you are not working as effectively as you would be in the office. Whether or not you were on a Teams call, your husband singing is distracting to you and not conducive to work.

To get over this, I’d work in the office for the next few weeks. When you are properly set up, make a point of saying this to your boss.

YABU to think that the sofa was appropriate.... You need a proper desk set up, or in a pinch to be at your dining room table with the dog and husband shut out. I always warn my husband if I'm going on a call so he doesn't come in and offer to put the kettle on etc.

If someone doesn’t have an appropriate quiet area to work from at home then maybe they shouldn’t be working from home? If there’s always the risk of someone singing or shouting during the working day this should be declared on job interview/work from home agreement.

I agree that someone shouldn’t have to tiptoe round their own house. But the compromise is that if you have the perk of working from home you need to have an appropriate place to work from surely? I know it depends on the job yes. But if someone works in customer service or any job involving phone calls or teams meetings with customers or clients then having someone loudly singing in the background while discussing for example a customers missed mortgage payments and the fact they might lose their house isn’t appropriate.

(note this is a general example. I’m not saying the OP does these things in her job. It is just related to the point about someone not having to be quiet in their own house if someone is working from home)

I would think this incredibly funny but I'm not in a management position my team often have dogs on calls but only within the team not wider meetings

My cat crashed my Teams morning briefing, flashing her anus to the working briefing via my laptop camera; you’re not alone.

Better than the chap who went and had a poo with his camera still on 🤦‍♂️

I would agree with this. I’d be concerned you haven’t got a proper work set up at home (and be worrying what you were doing when you weren’t on line tbh.)

Of course he is, but not in the middle of a meeting that his wife was participating in surely?

What were you thinking ?!

tell your husband to assume you are on Teams at all times.

Why should her husband have to always be tiptoeing around? He's allowed to sing in his own home if he wants to.

To be honest if someone one week in had this level of of disruption in a meeting I would be a bit worried that the can’t get their shit together.

depending on how senior you are, don’t take meetings on the sofa, close doors, keep it professional and you are in the office.

will you have to chair meetings? Present online? If so and I was your boss I would have reservations.

Do you and your husband think that it’s actually appropriate to do that?
He knew you were in a work meeting but still belted out Rule Britannia just because he thought you were muted… when most people wouldn’t behave like that while their partner was working from home and certainly not if they were in a meeting. So, do you two think that’s a normal way to behave at work?

I'd have found it v funny but as others have said, really depends on the industry and meeting context. For an important meeting, it sounds like you weren't paticularly prepared given dog/hubbie could interrupt, so on that basis it probably didn't make you look too professional. However, it's entirely down to the context and industry. Dogs and sofas will be absolutely fine in many WFH meetings.

You have said it was an "important" meeting so it doesn't look great in my opinion. Do you not have a proper working space at home?

Working from the couch does not make you lazy but I can see how it would look for an Important meeting, important being the key word here. So if that is your only set up, put on one of the Teams backgrounds on your video settings so nobody can see your background next time, and also prewarn your husband next time that you are about to go on an important call to minimise background noise.

I would be mortified if that happened to me, but I would also find it hilarious if it happened to someone else.

In my work the dog wouldn't be an issue but we'd silently judge the Rule Britannia 😬

Depends on your employer and the nature of the call.

If it was my employer, and it was an isolated one off, they’d probably think it was fairly amusing, if brief and didn’t really interfere with the meeting.

If it involved clients, they wouldn’t be happy - and would probably ask why I’m doing Teams calls with dogs / people around, on my sofa.

A few years ago I worked for a company where someone logged into a Teams call from their garden (it was a nice day) and suffice to say, senior people were not impressed, and the person “left” her job not long afterwards.

Is your usual WFH set up from the couch with your dog wandering in and your DH in the same room and TV one? That's not working. I think it's highly unprofessional and if I was your like manager I'd be having a chat with you.

Was there no assessment done prior to WFH to see if you had the appropriate equipment and a desk?

All work and teams calls need to be done from an appropriate desk, not a comfy couch.

I agree that 'sat on the couch' was a bad start.

If it’s a professional meeting it’s not ideal. You need to be on a separate room to your dh and dog and at a desk/rable.

I would be unimpressed. Sitting on your sofa doesn't look good for a start.

It wouldn’t go down very well in my workplace tbh - finance, so quite formal. People are really expected to have sorted out a desk and chair by now if WFH, not taking important calls on the sofa. Hopefully you have a bit more of an informal vibe and it won’t be an issue, personally, I’d have found it funny as long as it was an internal meeting.

“Important “ is key. I think you need to explain yourself!