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.

You know what, hell yea 🥂 😂

This has been such a funny / horrifying thread, and I feel sad I have nothing to contribute. Only that the sight of myself has alarmed me once or thrice. Why is it that it’s such a universally unflattering image?! I suppose I don’t have to do video calls very often and alls the better, it would ruin my self esteem 😂

I've got 2 cats, really not hunters , in 3 years have brought less than 5 things home

I was in a HUGE meeting talking about £900k I wanted to release. One of them brought thankfully (not for the mouse) a dead mouse in and started playing football with it around me

the meeting was that important I couldn’t do what some of us regularly do and pretend to lose network connection then log back in when issue sorted. No I had to finish the meeting

Not on a work meeting, but at the beginning of COVID, my son's school arranged a dance class, via zoom, a mix of kids attending virtually and some kids on person who were still allowed to attend school. Lots of people (parents) had been send the link so their kids could link into it and seconds into the class they had to stop it as someone had put up porn on the screen! Was spotted by the teacher and stopped immediately but not before it was seen by the kids. They had to send an email to parents and issue was reported to the police. Disgusting to think that someone thought it was "funny" to sabotage it like that. Caused a big scandal, don't think they ever found out who did it.

A laptop positioned on a coffee table during a particularly hot day.

The advisors shorts were too short.

Put the mouse back in the house sprang to mind.

Senior Trainer shared her screen and there was a chatGPT window open with previous chat history showing, all things like 'write me a training course on X subject' and 'given me training exercises about Y' and 'explain Z in simple terms.' She likes to claim she's a very experienced expert in her field, but we've always suspected bullshit.

A woman having a good rummage down her cleavage, adjusting her bra and then lighting a cigarette.

Someone having a highly confidential conversation about a client hadn't muted themselves in a session with over 40 people!

Another similar one someone complaining about how boring and terrible a course was, not muted.

Some of these are hilarious, some widely unprofessional and others just... worrying!

Not me but my partner was interviewing for a position over teams, the candidate after being asked a question of "describe a time you had to deal with a difficult situation at work" then muted his mic, (but didn't turn off his camera 🤣), turned to his mate who was in the same room, repeated the question, got his response, turned his mic back on and then told my bf "no...can't think of owt" 😬🤦🏻‍♀️

😂

This is brilliant 🤣🤣🤣

Brilliant thread - thank you! I once blurted out ‘boring’ instead of just thinking it….and then had to give an Oscar winning performance of it being a big joke 🤦‍♀️

Me. Was in a hospital waiting room waiting for my mum who was having an op, and with my iPad on my lap joined our team meeting via Teams silently and invisibly. Or so I thought. I leant on the camera button showing up my nose and the hospital ceiling. And accidentally turned the mic on blasting daytime TV to everyone. Luckily a colleague swiftly messaged me…

No idea how it happened as I’ve tried to replicate it without managing but during a presentation I threw my hands up and animated fireworks went off all around me. I was mortified

Oh and also in a team meeting someone suggested having a Teams social where people brought their lunch along. Boss said - do people really want to watch colleagues masticate? 4 people got the giggles and had to leave the call.

Imagine how good fireworks AND a Top Hat would be?! Oh, the drama and spectacle! That would be an excellent and unforgettable teams meeting.

Oh God, this made me laugh quite loudly and nearly wake up my sleeping 7 yo DS! 🤭🤣🤣🤣

Thank you!!! I haven't seen that before. Oh my god. Crying with laughter here.

Years ago I worked on the switch board for a large department store. We gave out a message on the tannoy 10 minutes before the shop closed, to warn we were closing. Once I left the tannoy switched on by accident so everyone in the shop could hear us bitching and gossiping.

Again not me but a colleague attended an online child safeguarding conference during covid and halfway through the conference someone joined and shared IIOC which was obviously really distressing for everyone attending.

On a lighter note the top hat story had me in a wrinkle.

I have also fallen asleep as a newbie. A colleague messaged me asking if I was ok. I pretended I was fine thinking it cant have been obvious it was me (id not really used Teams much) but maybe I snored!

😂
I agree about my face btw!

I seem to have got off lightly but the worst one was the year 2 scavenger hunt. The teacher asked everyone to go and find something yellow, one child came back with a bottle of bleach. For black, one child came back with their dad's car keys. Poor teacher was trying to persuade 6 year olds to give items back to their off screen parents.

After lockdown 3 dc had been back at school for a few days and 1 child in year 5 got covid so the whole lot of them got sent home again. The very frustrated teacher was trying to do multiple zoom meetings a day with half a class of reluctant 9 and 10 year olds. One child was on teams from his bed, several were eating breakfast/lunch and only about 3 had done the work they were supposed to.

We had a town hall meeting with our very unpopular CEO, hundreds of people logged on. He was taking questions from the floor via a comms woman about the latest raft of redundancies when the emoji feedback started - once everyone realised you could send negative emojis the floodgates opened, hundreds of them were making their way up the screen over his face as he spoke. None of them nice. It was both hilarious and awful!

during health and safety training we saw somebody getting toast out the toaster with a knife during the break. It was the trainer 🤦🏼‍♀️😂

On a directorate call of around 40 people including some senior managers. One of the group decided to share a spreadsheet but the window she shared was a Teams chat she was having with a colleague. They were slagging off two managers on the call saying they were incompetent and thick as pig shit etc. Everyone saw it. Cringey, and the person sharing was very panicky when she realised. It did serve to make me very careful when sharing windows on Teams calls.

That's reminded me of one. During a recorded Teams call, our supplier was switching between screens and accidentally shared a chat screen. It was milliseconds but I recognised my name on it. Obviously I then went back to view the recording and see what they'd been saying about me.

As it turns out it wasn't me but my actually lovely colleague with the same name. They tore strips off her and her attitude. Which was actually a really professional one but it appears our supplier didn't like being tied down to commit to anything. I think the phrase ball breaker was used. So bad.

A naked person walk past the corner of the screen, they clearly thought they were out of view and their partner didn't seem to notice as she was busy listening to our colleague. It was a rear view which isn't as bad although I am sure they both would have been mortified if they'd realised then and there.

From what I understand someone did nudge HR who very politely let her know. It was early days of zoom and I think mistakes like this were more common...!