What’s the worst thing you’ve witnessed in a Teams/Zoom meeting?

[purpleroses2]

I am ultra paranoid about online meetings, as I’ve witnessed a few mishaps:

1. A woman took a personal phone call and didn’t realise a colleague had left their mic on. She started slagging the whole team off and we could hear every word.
2. A man left his mic on and went to the toilet
3. Not me personally - but a friend was in a meeting where a woman left her cam on by accident and she had just got out of the shower. She then got dressed in full view of everyone on the meeting.

I wouldn’t dare do any of those things even near my laptop, just incase of an accident occurring.

I did similar my camera was on during work meeting, but I thought I was on mute. My dog came in the room covered in mud and jumped on the chair. I growled across the room Bobby get down off there, you are so naughty you better get out of here pretty damn quick you scruffy shit, before I throw you out.

When the meeting went quiet I realised I had to explain to my colleagues that Bobby was my dog, not my child. It was a child protection conference and I almost ran out to grab him to prove it.

During the middle of the working day, the woman's husband strolled in wearing a dressing gown (chest hair on display) and handed her a glass of champagne and started massaging her shoulders

Similar to @BigGra, a heart attack.
We called an ambulance and someone went round. It was actually a F2F meeting that the heart attack person was videoing into because he was on a phased return from a previous heart attack.

Nothing as funny as these, but there one call where a not tech savvy guy was screen sharing and clicked on the teams chat with someone else in the meeting which was slagging off attendees!

In 2022 during that incredibly hot period we were introducing a new database and the initial training session was done via Teams. Mostly screen sharing until the trainer stopped the sharing forgetting he was in his garden in only his boxers. My colleagues then were chatting about it with each other seemingly forgetting the trainer could also heat them talking about his moobs. It was a pretty terrible day all round

One bloke got up, went through a door directly behind his desk, and after a while there was a loud flushing. Who has a desk set up right outside their loo?!

And then on another occasion a man’s wife appeared with two plates of sausages and chips. She then sat down right beside him and they were both chomping away in plain sight and with full audio. The meeting leader was pretty cross as it was a) gross and b) there was confidential material being discussed and very inappropriate for a spouse to be sitting there (albeit totally focused on her grub…).

Mid covid I was on a training meeting where a visually impaired person was speaking with his colleague sharing his slides. As he was speaking a FB messenger window popped up and the chat was the slide sharer complaining to a friend about work and having to be on this ridiculous call and share these boring slides and how much she hated her job. After a couple of minutes someone very bravely spoke up to say they thought the wrong screen was being shared. Nothing was ever heard of the screen sharer again.

I'Ve also seen a medical emergency during a teams call. Really distressing.

Pretty minor - my colleague's cat threw up behind him (no screen blur/background) and he had to go and deal with it. My dog has also thrown up next to me whilst I've been on Teams but I've perfected the Teams pokerface 👌

Sounds like my dear departed uncle.

We had someone who had to screen share a lot in meetings - he was the project administrator I think (it's a few years ago now) and he always made sure he had a "mensa " tab open and visible. It made me think he must be deeply insecure.

I’m another one where a colleague had a medical
emergency mid teams call - life altering stroke. Just horrific.

Aside from that - someone already leaving under a cloud screen shared from OnlyFans during a team meeting on their last day!

• 1 colleague was rummaging up his nose and picking off bleeding scabs from his body- then proceeded to eat both
• Another time, one woman was sitting in her nightie. She put her foot up on the desk and started clipping her toe nails then ate them

I clearly work with grotty people 🤢

The thing that got me was it wasn’t a mistake or due to accidentally turning on his camera. He was leading on the meeting and genuinely thought that was an acceptable way to attend. He doesn’t work there anymore.

Some of these are gross 🤢 some are really funny. Im still laughing my head off about the Top hat 🤣🤣🤣

A friend of mine was seen ironing.
Didn't realise until 3 text messages later "can you do mine?"

An earthquake on a call with clients from Bangkok…About six people suddenly got really weird seasick- like expressions on their faces as they realized what happened, then all the connections cut. Myself and another person in the US were very confused. It was all ok in the end but definitely the weirdest end to a teams call.

My DH was on a call and I crawled in to the room and under the desk to grab the charger. Someone said ‘ahh is that your dog?’ To which I had to pop up and say ‘erm no it’s just me, his wife!’ 😂

This is amazing! 😂

Not a teams meeting but a conference call.
I was just on it to take the minutes.
4 big bosses and 6 submanagers were all talking about a new start up project.
It was going to cost the company about £12/15k to getting it going then much more further down the line but its the kind of project that they has done quite a few times before so should go without any major issues.

The call went well after a bit of back and forth everyone agreed on initial cost and a rough idea of the forecasted cost.
The meeting was wrapping up everyone saying goodbyes and hanging up when one of the submanagers obviously thought he'd hung up laughed really loud and spoke to someone that had obviously been listening in on the call but wasn't a member of staff.

And said " my god what a bunch of wankers but at least we can get a few more grand out if this ".
The other voice was a bit muffled but could clearly be heard saying this is the 5 project that we can screw about with the accounts team.

I was chuffed that I managed to get it all down in the minutes while everyone else just gaping in shock.

We were all told not to say anything to anyone while some checks were done , it turns out he'd siphoned off about £60 k over the past 2 years.

He was sacked and taken to court and the accounts team werr sent on a traing course !

Probably me, I was working at home but had my 11 month old at home as she was unwell. Had a catch up meeting with my manager, but baby was screaming so had to quickly get her breastfeeding to calm down. Luckily manager was my age with a young family himself so didn’t bat an eyelid

I love this, hilarious. No wonder he lost his train of thought 🤣🤣

Just told this one to DP…we are both now laughing!😆😆

Sorry, but that’s really funny and the sort of daftness that happens to me!

We used to have an online team meeting every Monday morning, and one woman always sat playing games on her phone. Her phone was out of view, but the sound was on, you could hear it, and it was clearly coming from her.

Not me but a very senior leader colleague once had to tell someone off for eating a massive sloppy sandwich, sound and camera both on, during a very serious meeting involving unions. Apparently it derailed the meeting and because of that, influenced the outcome.

I knew the woman who that was and I loved it when she joined our company wide Teams meetings because she just had zero awareness of herself. She’d been there forever, always referred to everyone as “one big family”, cackled a lot, interrupted the execs with inane comments (or to give them thumbs up…!) and once even offered to take some new senior starters under her wing to tell them “exactly what things are like round here!”

She obviously just thought because everyone was “like a family” it was fine. Watching them on our screens politely answer her in front of us all was so much fun. She was irritating, but on Teams meetings utter gold.