Disastrous Teams meeting - is it as bad as I think?

[BoringSilentHill]

Name changed as work related.

important teams meeting. I’m sat on couch, suddenly my dog jumps up and rams her nose into my eye, my mic is off . I try to push dog away and she thinks I’m playing so starts wrestling with me. Big dog. I notice the talking has stopped and colleagues are half way between amused and horrified.

I manage to sort this one out and everything is back on track until DH suddenly starts belting out Rule Britannia - this time my mic is on and in his defence, he didn’t know I was on teams. It was because we watched the choir.

this is a new job / one week in. How bad is it really or am I overthinking it?

My cat crashed my Teams morning briefing, flashing her anus to the working briefing via my laptop camera; you’re not alone.

I would think this incredibly funny but I'm not in a management position my team often have dogs on calls but only within the team not wider meetings

If someone doesn’t have an appropriate quiet area to work from at home then maybe they shouldn’t be working from home? If there’s always the risk of someone singing or shouting during the working day this should be declared on job interview/work from home agreement.

I agree that someone shouldn’t have to tiptoe round their own house. But the compromise is that if you have the perk of working from home you need to have an appropriate place to work from surely? I know it depends on the job yes. But if someone works in customer service or any job involving phone calls or teams meetings with customers or clients then having someone loudly singing in the background while discussing for example a customers missed mortgage payments and the fact they might lose their house isn’t appropriate.

(note this is a general example. I’m not saying the OP does these things in her job. It is just related to the point about someone not having to be quiet in their own house if someone is working from home)

YABU to think that the sofa was appropriate.... You need a proper desk set up, or in a pinch to be at your dining room table with the dog and husband shut out. I always warn my husband if I'm going on a call so he doesn't come in and offer to put the kettle on etc.

Pets are generally viewed positively by colleagues as they’re cute. Husbands - less so!

Seriously though, if this was a work day for you and you were working remotely, you need a proper office set up with a door you can shut to focus. If you dont have this, you are not working as effectively as you would be in the office. Whether or not you were on a Teams call, your husband singing is distracting to you and not conducive to work.

To get over this, I’d work in the office for the next few weeks. When you are properly set up, make a point of saying this to your boss.

I don't understand why people are saying they'd find this funny. It's totally unprofessional. It wouldn't even be particularly funny in a non-professional setting. If I witnessed this on a call I'd be wondering what on earth we were doing employing this person. OP, I would expect your manager to have a discussion with you around expectations, professionalism and confidentiality.

Ask yourself the following: do you think any of the attendees would trust you to be present in an important meeting with a customer, or head office, or... ?
I certainly wouldn't, specially when you have only been working for one week and you are endeavouring to create a great first impression. What is it going to look like 6 months down the line?
Attending a meeting in a sofa, being unable to control your pet, etc... are traits of someone who does not take their job seriously. And it is insulting for the rest of the people who actually make the effort to find an appropriate environment to work.
If your reputation is something that matters to you, and it should, I suggest you apologise tomorrow first thing. And make sure that you don't make these silly mistakes ever again.

Yeah I think this kind of informal setup with family and furry friends interrupting was one thing during lockdown etc when everyone had to work from home and we all understood that no everyone was set up for that.

Now I think if you want to work from home it’s on you to make at least some effort to do so professionally, especially for an “important meeting”. That means NOT on your couch and making at least some effort to keep pets under control and privacy from family members. We all get that stuff happens and I’m pretty relaxed and love seeing people’s pets and family, but I think one week in this doesn’t make a good impression.

Your one mitigation is given this was a Sunday of working from home in this setup is unusual and all only happened because you had to dial in out of hours. Even so though I think I’d have expected you to try to find somewhere a bit more quiet and private than your living room for it.

Do you have a dedicated work space?
Working from the sofa with pets and your family around you is not very professional.
I think it's accepted and tolerated that anyone WFH may be interrupted now and again but if you can't sort out a quiet time for meetings it's going to look quite poor.

Why was your dog not put in another room while you attended this important meeting? Why didn't you tell your husband you were in an important meeting.

TBH, if I'd witnessed a new colleague do this it wouldn't make a good impression.

I have WFH for 15 years, much of that as a lone parent so have had to arrange for my children to be out of the way. It's an informal, academic environment and have plenty of non-work talk but also know when we need to be professional.

I'd be less bothered about the pets & Husbands (both out of your control to an extent) and least impressed by you sitting on a sofa.

If you don't have a desk & chair, you're not equipped to WFH.

Important work call and sat on the couch don't really go together tbh, if anyone says anything at work perhaps it would be a good idea to be prepared to reassure them that that's not your usual WFH setup (and make sure it isn't!).

However, to reassure you, I've seen people survive cats knocking their webcams off their PCs, spouses or kids walking in and making noise mid-call, underwear left hanging up to dry in the background, housemate wandering in and offering them a spliff and a slice of pizza mid-call, and one poor lass who thought she could get away with listening in on a large meeting on her phone while shaving her legs in the bath (and could have done if she hadn't accidentally turned her camera on).

Agree with most of it but unsure whether seniority is relevant.
If the person was very junior I would question whether they understood how to behave in the workplace (OP doesn't say, but this might be her first job - in light of the lack of adequate homeworking set up and husband not understanding that work is quiet time).
If they were senior I would have concerns about trusting their judgement with anything important.

I’ve heard people go to the bog with the mike on.

I’ve seen people asleep and snoring, with cam and mike on.

I agree with this. The whole “laughing at children bursting in” was a lockdown thing when everyone was making the best of a situation with no time to plan. So people were wfh whilst homeschooling and balancing laptops on ironing boards and sharing office space with partners. A lot of people were working much less effectively from home than the office, but the alternative was doing no work at all a so there was a high-level of tolerance and acceptance.

Now wfh is definitely a privilege and the expectation is that if you cannot do it as effectively (due to lack of privacy/space/childcare issues/wifi connection) then you work in the office.

When you say you have seen people "survive" that - presumably there were consequences (unless you're exaggerating for comedic effect). Being offered drugs while at work would be sacking offence in my profession but I'm sure in others would at least merit a very serious meeting. Skiving off to listen in the bath is nearly as bad. Underwear is unprofessional (stern email time). Obviously accidents can happen in any setup so I can't see anyone caring about knocking a webcam over. It doesn't scream "I am taking the piss by pretending to work" like the others.

mic*
and where's the rest of the story? Everyone clapped and said "what a legend" or they were seen as unprofessional/fired? It's not much use to OP if you tell her that other people have also had bad meetings without saying what happened next (also I am nosey lol)

Why were you on a teams call on the sofa? Very unprofessional. Working from home, especially video teams calls, should be from a proper WFH space - whether that be an office room, desk in another room. At the very least the kitchen table! It’s things like this that are making companies return to the office.

😂I would want to be your friend.
As long as it didn't happen daily.

By survival I mean they kept their jobs. Consequences yes (not including sacking), plus a varying degree of anything from good natured teasing to 'please make sure they're not in charge of anything important' largely depending on how senior, useful and/or generally well behaved and dependable the individual was.

If I have an important teams meeting I make sure I’m in a shut-off space where I’m not going to be interrupted by anyone, including animals. It was pretty unprofessional to just sit on the sofa in an area of your house where you could be (and were, twice) interrupted by other inhabitants of your home. Totally your fault.

This made me laugh 😆 OP you will be fine!

To be honest you sitting on the sofa would be the bit I wouldn’t have been impressed by. You need a professional space really.

Sorry but it’s pretty bad. It sucks but if you’re going to WFH and you don’t have a home office you need to be tucked away somewhere eg in your bedroom or a spare room. These both happened because you were in the middle of the house. You obviously can’t expect your husband (and dog) to keep quiet all day. And get a headset, for everyone’s sake.

That being said no one will care about it in the long run!

When lockdown first happened and we were all “making do” with our WFH set up, I did a teams call with one very senior colleague (my boss) and someone from HR only to realise after approx 20 mins that I had a MASSIVE dildo on the shelf behind me.