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?

People saying blur your background so people can't tell you're on a sofa - you can still tell. People lean back when they are on a sofa and have a relaxed angle and when they move the background doesn't always catch up and glimpses of sofa show through. I have a team member who is disabled and works from bed when they WFH. I don't like it but I wouldn't say anything because of the disability and they find bed more comfortable for long stretches but it's very obvious even with a background as you get glimpses of headboard.

OP this was a poor impression to give as others have said. You need to sort it out before your next meeting.

It was on Have I Got News for you recently I think. Chap on a teams call using a laptop, must have thought his camera was off, wanders into the bathroom, and, well, sits down etc. Someone had to tell him his camera was on, and then there was some panicked shuffling. 🤣

If I were your line manager, and this was the first time, I’d speak to you to ensure that you had a dedicated work space that was quiet, with a door to close, and that this incident was a one off. If you didn’t have a dedicated work space, I would expect you to come into the office every day. If your employer no longer has an office, you really need to think about where you work from.

Having the technology, flexibility and expectation to work from home is a massive benefit to many people, that has come out of the pandemic. WFM should not mean that professional standards are reduced.

Very unprofessional. Funny as well, yes, just this once. As a colleague, I would not want to watch you sorting out your dog more than once and waste my time on that. Going forward, you need a chair plus desk, a room with only you in it (no dog, no husband) and you need to tell whoever is in the house that you’ll be on a call. To be honest I am a little surprised, assuming you’re an adult, that this needs to be explained to you.

Agree. It's completely off. I would expect it to be raised and would be incredibly annoyed at my husband.

If you don't have an office space, which is fine, at least sit at a desk. I have secondhand embarrassment reading this.

Whats that got to do with anything?

In my line of work, a dog incident would have been OK but having a work meeting with a member of the household present would be a scalable offence due to breach of confidentiality. Sitting on a sofa also would have been frowned upon. Not a great look, OP..

You wouldn't take your dog or your husband to work with you, nor should either be in your home office while you are working.

I agree with everyone else - working on a sofa in a communal area of a busy household doesn’t give the impression you’re working properly.

I would email your boss and apologise for the disruption and say you haven’t got your home working space set up properly yet as it’s the first week but it will be shortly.

Why choose the sofa?

As pp have said a desk, chair and door shut is better.

The dog is less of an issue than your dp imo. In my job, confidentiality is expected so having a non collegue in the room during a call would be a no no, though pets are fairly common. Depends what you do but in future id recimmend working somewhere privare with the door shut!

You need to find a private work space - I wouldn't have been impressed that you were sitting on the couch. You need to set up a desk or table in a private space and have a sign on the door to stop your dog and other people coming in.

Rule Britannia of all things! I also would have also been thrilled to be on that call.

Honestly I think 80% of people (at a conservative estimate) would think the same so you’ll be fine.

Reminds me of a story I’ve heard that someone was on a teams call, needed to fart, so muted and then farted. Except he was already on mute so all he did was turn mute off, fart, and then turn mute back on.

Could be worse OP

It was an important call, why on earth were you on the sofa? Unless that’s what everyone does, it looks really unprofessional. We had someone in our organisation do this and she always looked like she was slobbing around whilst the rest of us were sat at a desk.
and always have mic on mute unless speaking!

This sort of thing was funny in 2020. Now I find it incredibly tedious when meetings are interrupted by people's pets, partners or children.

And if you can't have a single meeting without being wrestled by your dog and having your partner sing loudly, it doesn't look like you've been doing focused work the rest of the time when the camera is off.

I guess it has been forgiven this time but even wfh you need to have a more professional set up. I don't know how anyone can work on the sofa with the dog jumping all over them. Also my dh is never in earshot when I am working let alone during a teams meeting. Hopefully no harm done but if you want to be seen as professional then I would get a space to work with a desk and chair, preferably in a room where you can shut the door. Many people think those of us who wfh are shirkers, definitely not the case in my job. Don't give people a reason to think you don't take the job seriously regardless of where you work.

You should be on an actual upright chair in a room with a closed door. It’s unprofessional to sit on your sofa and definitely to sit in an open space where things like this can happen.

Mmm I don't think it's ideal. I work from home but do so in the spare room with the door shut. Very occasionally an errant cat will slip the net and sit on the windowsill behind me, or my OH will quietly sneak in with a cuppa for me, but I don't think it's very professional to be on the sofa with a dog next to you and also with your husband in full earshot.

My own team - not a big issue.

Anything with other departments - we have strict rules how to work and that we have to have a dedicated area with the possibility to close doors if there are other people in the house.
So you would have had a call from managment about your work situation next and it could end with wfh withdrawn for you.

This would have made my day. 😂 This was also pretty commonplace when everyone was working from home during Covid. Do you remember the man doing the bbc interview? It gave everyone a much needed giggle.

I would say though, that doing Teams calls from a sofa is probably not a great idea going forward if you want to be professional and for people to take you seriously. As a one off, it's probably not done much harm.

Don’t want to repeat what everyone has said about suitable working space etc

If it was my new team member, it would be the way you react after this happens which I’d find telling

If you brush it off as funny, and for others watching it probably would be depending on the meeting - I’d worry. If you’re clearly mortified and apologise, I wouldn’t as I know it’d be unlikely to be repeated.

You absolutely shouldn’t have been working from a sofa and your husband shouldn’t have been around. You should be wearing headphones if there is any possibility of background noise. The dog would bother me less than the sofa and singing husband and I would likely have a word about professionalism.

• Dog, not an issue, amusing!
• Sitting on the sofa - that would be very unusual in my work and I'd think 🤨
• husband in background not ideal but not the end of the world

There was a Canadian (I think) MP who was completely starkers on a teams call while he got changed. The poor fellow thought his camera was off.

My cat and one of my dogs regularly barge onto my calls, and my disabled son sometimes does too, BUT I work for a small and very laid back charity and everyone knows I have a complicated home situation and need a lot of flexibility.

OP I’d find your dog wrestling with you hilarious but I’d be baffled by your husband. Having said that, if he couldn’t hear that you were on a call, hopefully the mic didn’t pick up his sudden joyful patriotics!

I personally hate seeing people sitting on their sofa for meetings. I’d also be pretty unimpressed that you hadn’t had the foresight to shut yourself in a room. Or that you didn’t have headphones on/in so any Tom Dick or Harry could hear the meeting. So all in all I’d be pretty unimpressed.