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.

Her life sounds lovely tbf.

I was once off camera but sadly not muted and let out a massive fart. I often try to subtly fart whist on camera after triple checking I'm muted.

a colleague was often seen eating, and standing up, generally moving around and being irritating! imo

Vaping, laundry piles, someone wearing their dressing gown and who clearly hadn’t brushed their hair or washed.

DH was on a very sad Teams call after a colleague bereavement.

It was difficult, ppl were crying. He took a sip of tea out of his plain white mug, forgetting it was one DS had given him for Christmas and on the bottom is written "You're a cunt" so when tipped up everyone could see...

😆🤣🤣

Yep. I saw someone eating her dinner in a very slobbery way. With the sound on.

Did you read the bit where it was accidental? She didn’t “put it on speakerphone” the phone automatically connected to the car speaker via Bluetooth. She didn't anticipate or plan for it to happen.

No, she said "all going fine, I've got the phone on loud speaker"...that was before it was connected

Anyway. Loud speaker or not this was completely unacceptable. You don't have work calls in public places when dealing with any confidential or personal information. Not matter how procedural the hearing

I known them both and they are lovely, it was just a bit TMI in a big project call

When my kids school tried to do zoom assembly or zoom lessons early in lockdown it was absolute carnage. The early days of widespread video conferencing tech being used by 9 year olds and their exasperated parents. Teachers unable to keep on top of muting them or managing their contributions. Painful.

🤣🤣🤣

🙄 a speaker in a room where she was alone!! And it was not confidential

We had a guy at work who was a naturist so used to join Teams calls naked. Fortunately you couldn’t see bottom half. When Covid was sober he used to walk to work naked - made the papers. HR had stern words re the calls but we couldn’t sack him as not illegal. He was a contractor and did not get kept on,

I wasn’t personally on this call but this was horrendous, happened a few years ago and I’d also heard other stories about this particular sheriff:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/06/scottish-former-sheriff-fined-over-crass-and-offensive-remarks-about-porn

Was doing a training session online and one poor chap didn’t want to miss anything while taking a bathroom break. He muted himself but left the video on as he took his laptop into the toilet 🙈 We were all so embarrassed for him but also couldn’t stop laughing…

From November 2025

“Two senior executives at insurance firm Guernsey Finance resigned after a "compromising" video meeting recording was inadvertently shared with staff, The Sun reported on 21 November.
The organisation’s CEO, Rupert Pleasant, and a married female colleague failed to realise that a meet room computer screen was still recording after a staff training session had ended

The footage showed the pair in a "compromising position," according to one source, and gossiping about other colleagues.”

https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/ceo-and-senior-executive-resign-after-video-incident

That screenshot is everything!! 😂😂😂

Yes same, never seen anything exciting or done anything embarrassing. I'm very hot on making sure I've muted if I need to and always male sure I'm dressed properly

I paid for an online talk from a woman who was an expert in her field and one of the other attendees (male) spent the whole talk interrupting her, challenging every point, waffling on about shit he had clearly learned from Facebook, and generally being an entitled prick. She eventually muted him and he carried on in the chat whining that he was being ignored and he had paid good money for the talk.

I turned to dd and said something along the lines of 'look at this absolute dickhead trying to make everything about him' and interrupted the presenter mid flow 🤦‍♀️ She handled it perfectly though and the mainsplainer eventually flounced out of the talk.

I would have shouted "bloody hell John Im on an important call here" 😆😆

I don't disagree with you - at all.

However, this while thread is about mishaps. You could write “so unprofessional” under each and everyone of the posts on the thread, right?

Loxkdown pilates class and one person was unmuted as well as yhe teacher.
The student kept farting but every time she did the camera became her - must be how the teacher had the settings, ie speaker view
So embarrassing , but great too

Nothing too major, a woman absolutely screamed at her kids once (forgot to turn her camera and mic off) the second they came into the room and a guy shared his screen with 5 tabs of job searches before flicking into word, where his CV was open before finally making it into excel.

😆