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

If it makes you feel any better, we were in a meeting and someone accidentally turned on his mic and had obviously fallen asleep as he was snoring, for ages. It was hilarious! He was lucky it was our last day before our contracts finished 😆

have a sign on the door to stop your dog
😂

Sitting on a sofa doesn’t give the right impression, I am reminded of the online speed awareness course I did where one of the participants was lying in bed. The trainer was not amused.

If you did this in the first week of the new job when I wfh you’d have been sacked, as part of the contract was having a private room and desk to work at.

A general team meeting after 6 months+ would be less problematic but it still doesn’t come across as professional and I’m not sure how easy it must be to write notes when on your bed.

I personally take pride in coming across as professional, whether that’s in the office or wfh.

I think if I'd been one week into a new job, I'd have sat at a table, locked the dog out, told husband to keep quiet

It's a bit hmmm but as long as it was an internal meeting .......not the end of the world

It is bad.

If I were your manager I'd be thinking that you do not have the set-up to work from home; and that you and your family do not have the mind-set for you to be able to work from home.

If you are on a work call - you tell everyone in the house to shut up and keep out of the way, and you make sure that the children and the dog cannot intrude. basic work-from-home 101, and you blew it.

That is SO funny!!!!

I would have found that really funny, don't worry about it.

We should all have a home office, or other space that can be used similarly to an office, if choosing to work from home. Other household members being present is inappropriate as discussions that should be confidential will not be.

That's right, no-one has ever suffered any kind of mishap or interruption or been distracted or unprofessional in an office. It's never happened once.

We use teams all the time. For an internal meeting, we would probably find it hilarious, an external meeting it's an absolute no.

Ha, PPs would have a fit if they could see me- I sit on my bed with the duvet over my legs to keep me warm all day at work, often with something on TV in the background.

It does depend entirely on your team or place of work.

I've recently changed teams within the same organisation. My previous team was very laidback, and no engagement with external clients. If DD was around (she rarely is, it's only occasionally that childcare falls through) she'd occasionally pop up and say hi and everyone would tell her how cute she was- which meant that me telling her not to do that went in one ear and out of the other as clearly everyone was happy to see her. They'd have been delighted to see your dog.

Then a couple of weeks ago she was sat in the same room as me happily occupied with some drawing when I unexpectedly had to jump on a very quick call with a client and she immediately came over and started trying to get into the camera frame. The client was understanding about it and we resolved the issue he had, but I was furious with her as she'd been told that things were different now and it looked unprofessional. She definitely won't do it again.

I've done online meetings since before Covid (Goto meeting was awful) and for the most part I'm alone in my office as my desk.
No one can walk behind me thank goodness else I'm sure they would have done dozens of times. My husband has my calendar schedule and knows when I have regular meetings. I can message him on WhatsApp if he needs me during the meeting.

Get a desk and use that than crouching over a laptop on a coffee table.

And 'lots of people, including me' would think you were incredibly uptight and think you needed to remove the stick from your arse. So, y'know, we're all different.

OP, nobody would bat an eyelid if this happened on a Teams call where I work. If things like this happened in every meeting with you, then it might start to raise eyebrows, but not as a one-off.

Mumsnet is really weird about people WFH in general though.

We would have found that really funny! We are professional but we're human first. Good luck in your new job OP, I think if they have a massive problem with something like this happening as a one off - you'll not want to stay there very long anyway.

This really

There's Health & Safety regulations for working with screens. If you don't have somewhere suitable to sit that's an issue, regardless of how it comes across on calls.

It's one thing where these slip ups were in the early days of lockdown, or where someone is senior or has worked for a company for years and has built a reputation. A slip up there could be funny because it's so out of character. But this isn't.

I cannot believe there are people that have a problem with someone sitting on their own sofa. How a dare someone sit somewhere comfortable for a meeting.

Our divisional directors cat invaded a meeting the other week. They have a spare room but the door is being changed so it was difficult to keep the cat out. He had to go in the kitchen in the end. People would probably have an issue with that too.

As though we all have a home office.

That really made me laugh OP!

We all need some levity. Just try to minimise other crazy interruptions and it’ll be a thing of the past soon.

Although the time my colleague stood up on a zoom call to adjust his fan and accidentally flashed his white y-fronts just at the start of Covid will never ever stop being office lore 😂

Wondered how long it would be before someone piped up with this 🙄

Hilarious my old company would have loved all that!

And this is why people need to get back to the office.

It was unprofessional of you, but you can’t change what has happened now. You can definitely make sure this doesn’t happen again by being in a room with the door shut, away from husband, dog and most other household noise. Never take an important teams or zoom call sitting on the sofa again!

Sorry OP but this really made me lol if nothing else you’ve brightened my rather dull morning hopefully they will just laugh it off

Don't sweat it OP nobody was in the background making racist or misogynistic comments etc. I'd find your dog and DH quite funny tbh.

In the early days of lockdown my DH was in our lounge on a call with some head of investment or similar big cheese, I wasn't aware this call had started and I stubbed my toe very hard and yelled out the f word. Nobody really cared, apparently there were a few stifled laughs if anything.