On line meetings. Fake backgrounds.

[UnfunnyJester]

Do most people show their real backgrounds or fake ones for online meetings?

I work in a creative industry and my Mac is the corner of my sitting room. It’s very quirky in style because I’m slightly eccentric . I always get ‘wow! Love your house’. The beams make people assume it’s a big fancy place but it’s a pokey little cottage really. It’s an Ice breaker and I think people like the openness of a real room.

I always feel suspicious when people have fake or blurred backgrounds. What are they hiding?

I've organised my room so what's behind me is just books and the window. I blur it when I'm in the office if people are likely to walk behind me because it sort of feels like an invasion of their privacy.

We are told to use company or blurred, after a disturbing incident on a global call where a guy in Texas had a prepper bunker background with lots of different guns on racks behind him. Or so we thought until someone said 'nice background' and he turned round and took one of the guns down and pointed it at us.

@natura are you a counsellor by any chance!?

Yes the proper fake backgrounds (fish tank etc) seem a bit childish/so 2020 now but I'm glad at work we dont have real backgrounds (use corporate or blurred) as people subconsciously make so many value judgements and I don't think my "over crowded ex council house" presents the same image people have of me at work!

Fake image of a loft office type place, I work from the office 90-95% of the time but it saves other people in the meeting being distracted by others walking behind me etc.

Fake background usually - blurry does quite well but as I discovered the other day did not fully hide the half naked topless poster of a blonde woman one bloke had on his wall.

A previous employer that provided education and training mandated obscured backgrounds on all calls as a matter of safeguarding (Apparently there had been issues with people seeing photos in the background)

Turns out you can't set a specific policy in Teams to do that (yet another "that's interesting, we'll look into it from Microsoft"). So we had to make it a policy point.

That said as a matter of preference A light blurring helps prevent distractions.

I know some folk who use a branded background to prevent a screenshot or videoclip being used out of context without too much effort.

Clothes piled up on the bed behind - private stuff that is absolutely nothing to do with anyone else on the teams call . Why would anyone feel they have the right to see into people's homes?

I used this one in lockdown for a long time supporting in lessons online.

Real, never blurred or fake. One day a week where I can’t have camera in at all so I’ve been experimenting with an avatar - I’ve got it to the right level of RBF rather than the Stepford Wife setting it started at. No one likes them though.

DH (same employer) has a corporate background. I think he has it cos what’s behind him is a bit chaotic, but it also enables me to have an unseen nosey at who he’s talking to 😆

@ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea we have 15 different sites across the county so meetings can regularly be with people at other sites but our team has to be in twice a week to see each other and plan etc. I have 2 days at one site, 2 days at another and one at home. We all need to keep in touch, have visibility across all the sites and use hybrid well.

Real - it’s only the bookshelf and a plant you can see behind me with how I have my laptop angled.

I find the fake ones really distracting as they flicker around the edges of people’s heads.

Real, it's just the bookcase in my office

I have a home office, I always use a real background. People with fake backgrounds make me wonder what they are hiding.

Has anyone else found people in meetings starting to use the avatar feature in Teams? That's something I find really distracting.

Rockgirl (and others) haven't you thought that might be because you have a "home office"?

Many many wfh are working from kitchen table (so piles of dishes in the background/laundry...) or from their sofa or from a desk in their bedroom.

It's not so much "hiding" as not very professional! It doesn't take much imagination to see this.

But yes great if you have a home office/wooden beams etc mentioned on here!

I find it strange when people are at home and they don't blur their background, if they don't have a dedicated office space at least.

I was on a call last week and I could see the person's family member wandering around in the background (tbf was quite a large open plan living space, but still).

There's someone where I work whose real background is nearly identical to one of the pre-installed fake backgrounds on Teams.

I have been a homeworker for over 20 years, and have a dedicated office, so I use my real background - it’s just a lot of reference bookshelves and a relevant print. And some Funko Pop vinyls, but those are behind my head so nobody knows they’re there 😁

I can’t use the blurring, because I have a lot of very light, curly hair, which somehow Teams can’t ‘see’, so I become just a giant floating face. Nobody needs that.

I prefer it if people use fake backgrounds - I have no choice but to work (literally) on the shop floor and to have to 'attend' meetings on Zoom and to see people swanning around in their own homes, with kids, pets etc wandering around is very unprofessional. In the middle of a very difficult and sensitive presentation last week someone started giggling about the doorbell ringing and the 'perils' of working from home. . A senior manager actually appeared looking as though she had just got out of the shower ....

I'm hiding the fact that I work from a desk squeezed into the corner of my living room and behind me is a storage unit of my kids books, craft crap and toys.

Also my company has a requirement that everyone use of the fancy company branded images of a colour appropriate office space to match the corporate colours.

Real. I have a corporate background I use occasionally in external meetings but usually forget anyway. When I'm in the office I have my own office, and I have a home office at home so I've made sure the wall behind me is a suitable background.

Blurred.

The fake ones are distractingly obvious as fakes, and spark conversations about what you can “see” when they flicker/glitch, which I don’t want to be part of!

I should tidy up the bookcase and use my real one; but for now it’s blurred.

I dont think full on real (ie not blurred or corporate backgriund) looks very professional either tbh for all the reasons people say. The focus should be you/your work not peeking in each others houses.