WFH + Emergencies, what would you do?

[Justanotherusernameagain]

I work from home in a role where I spend 30 minutes on video calls to 50-100 people at random times of the day, whenever they’ve booked in. It’s usually a task to get all the people on the call at the same time so lots of organisation on the businesses part.

My husband also works from home but different industry with very few meetings so this issue hasn’t been considered before but it’s now on my brain wondering what to do as he is away in a couple of weeks for a conference

What if during one of my meetings there was mad hammering at the door with somewhere there for an emergency, think old lady has fallen over etc type emergency. There’s an elderly population around me and it has happened before! Would you apologise to the meeting and answer the door or would you ignore it?

My thought is apologise, quickly answer it and hope it’s nothing so I can run back to my meeting but then my anxiety brain says what if I answer it and it’s something super urgent and I can’t run back to my meeting to tell them. OR I don’t answer it and something horrific has happened and my neighbours all hate me 🥵

What would you do?

How could you not have seen other people deal with a knock at the door so far? It is a pretty common event. Not all are emergencies of course, most are deliveries.

Ime people wearing headsets tend to mute and just pop to the door. People presenting or in a small group will excuse themselves briefly saying someone is at the door. In large meetings those not presenting will usually not say anything but just turn video off for a minute and mute themselves to open the door.

Ignore the door if you’re in a work, especially if it’s a client/external group. If anyone mentions afterwards just say sorry you didn’t hear as was in a work meeting.

I wfh. If the door goes I just pop my camera off and answer it.

If an emergency happened I'd drop off the call and deal with it.

If I know I’m having something delivered, I answer the door. Other than that, if I’m in the middle of a call, I generally ignore the door. We have cameras so I can see who it is.

The hypothetical old lady will have to get help from someone else. 😅 Not everything is my problem.

🤣

Well that wouldnt help would it as emergencies are what the OP is worried aboujt😁

What I would do it never even think this might happen in the hypothetical situation, I don't wfh with large mettings but if I did I certainly wouldn't be worrying about things that are supremely unlikely to happen

I've worked from home for over 10 years and I've never had someone come to the door with an emergency. It's usually just Evei or an Amazon delivery which I ignore if I'm on a call.

I think you're working about something that is very unlikely to happen

Seems like a strange thing to worry about, how would you even know it was an emergency & is there a particular reason a neighbourhood would trying to reach you in particular? Personally I ignore the door if I'm on a work call but very unlikely anyone would be banging my door in an emergency

If you were in office and someone started shouting fire / fire alarm went off, what would you do?

@turkeymuffin look to my manager for whether drill/false alarm
Apologise to the customer and advise I'll call them back

If there's no fire/smoke/alarm in my own house then I would finish the call I was on which usually takes a couple of minutes
I don't answer the door at all when I'm working, my neighbours would walk in and ask for help if it was life threatening

These are all really valid and appreciated responses. A couple of things to add as I think my original post may have been quite vague.

We live in a remote village abroad, the average age population in my village is 80 and I’m the youngest by 40 years.
I run my meetings, I’m the one presenting. Going to answer the door is generally not acceptable.
Not answering the door could also be life or death (and has been in the past) for my neighbours as i am first aid trained and can help at the start of an emergency.

I suspect from the overwhelming response that I’m basically a freak and weird for being anxious about this, that I’m in the wrong. I also suspect that my anxiety is probably more likely due to being alone here for the first time since we moved here, which obviously I didn’t add in my post.

Thanks everyone for your input

I’m a lecturer and do one day a week remote teaching from home. If someone was banging on the door I would say to my students, excuse me for one second - they would have heard the banging too - and mute my mic, turn off my camera, and see what was going on. I’ve had sessions where my cat has randomly popped up on my lap, unexpected work on next door’s roof which was noisy, people generally accept that there might be a bit of disruption.

If the village lacks medical personnel such that your ignoring the door causes death, I'm not sure that anybody will be in a position to hate you really. After all they have no other choice.

In any case, in this niche scenario you probably should help. But your employer isn't going to take too kindly to you putting yourself in this situation.

Now, I don't know how many incidents have happened in the past but an emergency is supposed to be a once off. Not occurring more than say once a year.

It's not your employer's problem that you've effectively become the local volunteer first aider. Or chosen to move somewhere so remote.

I don't think the number of people is relevant personally it's also the audience.
Your entire lecture slot is yours, and if you can't cover the material you can presumably make it up in some way. The students are more senior to you, quite the opposite. You're not going to have to worry about diary space in makeup sessions if needed, etc.

Even I can get away with such disruption during informal training events, demos etc. But it would be unacceptable in higher level meetings, big scheduled sessions etc where interruptions would require a major reshuffle. And also make me look disorganised especially where image is important

Again , a genuine emergency is fine, once off but if these things start happening too often it makes the home work environment seem highly inappropriate.

In a kind of reversal of this situation, one of my colleagues had a heart attack on a Teams meeting and we were able to call him an ambulance.