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?

Meetings on a sofa in the office is entirely different.

I would never react if someone joins a teams call and is sat on the sofa. But it would always strike me as unprofessional and make me wonder how focused they are.

That said, I have a couple of colleagues with chronic illness and they sometimes have to work propped up on the sofa and to me that's totally different as it's something they need in order to work.

People think it’s amusing and amiable to suddenly have their dog jump up on a call because some idiots will start cooing over it. Lots of people, including me, won’t say anything but be mentally rolling their eyes because it looks dopey, unprofessional and it wastes peoples time while you’re flustering and pandering to it. So YABU and you should try to do better.

Maybe it was more common and more acceptable in lockdown days when we were all just winging it, but not now.

Why are you on the couch for an important teams meeting? And also in the room with the rest of the family with life going on as normal?
Id assume you weren’t taking your job seriously at all and be swiftly getting back to watching daytime TV with husband and dog straight after (who is also listening to a private work call).

Are you brand new and junior? Probably not...

But would you use that excuse for other professions? If your GP had her dog in the surgery and you were there to discuss a lump in your breast would you be happy with the dog jumping all over her during the consultation? Because maybe she couldn’t get a dog sitter that day and she’s only human after all! She’s not a machine!

The problem with the “she’s only human” idea, while true, is that it leads to a decline in professionalism generally. I couldn’t care less if people have dogs/children/husbands/wives around when they’re working. As long as I don’t see or hear them during important work interactions. That should apply whether you’re in an outside home job or inside home job.

You might want to rethink your 80%.

For a start, the poll suggests 45% think op is unreasonable. And if you read the comments, it seems like most are saying it’s unprofessional to conduct an important meeting on a sofa and in a communal area (which it is).

It really depends on who you work with and what you do.

MN in general is really envious of people WFH and doesn't understand different ways of working and teams and assume everyone is taking the piss so you'll get answers that reflect that.

I always remember attending a Teams call during Covid and one of the external
participants, who was chairing the session, was clearly sat up, fully dressed, in bed. It was both bizarre and came across as really unprofessional.

I feel ya op.

Last week my 88 year old mother photobombed an important Teams call with a valued client with “have you seen daddy his incontinence pants are on the floor”.

She doesn’t understand what Teams is, and being rather deaf didn’t hear I was even on a work call. (Father has late stage dementia and he was out with carer).

😆😆😆

Part of the reason this has irritated me is that it plays into every single stereotype about home workers being lazy, flaky work-dodgers.

I've had loads of judgement over the years from people about working from home, and this was mainly in the pre COVID days when I had to do it sometimes as a single parent and I used to get loads of not very kind ribbing about not being in the office.

People who work from home get enough grief from the stuffed shirts who believe everyone needs to be bums on seats in the office all the time as it is. It doesn't help if people like OP play right into their hands with dogs on camera and comedy husbands.

In fairness, OP may be quite junior and not have realised this. But it does harm other home workers when people behave like a bit of an oaf.

What's wrong with Rule, Brittania? The choir were singing it, after all. I think it would have been fun to be in the meeting and everyone will laugh it off.

Like others I think:
Sofa not ok
Dog fine, as a one-off, but it sounds like the whole situation was probably exacerbated by you being on the sofa and so dog being able to 'wrestle' you
Husband not fine

Haha, this would have made me laugh but I wouldn't think it too serious. I'd seek out a more private area for when you WFH where you won't be disturbed by the dog or your DH, so that you can reassure your line manager it won't happen again.

To make you feel better, I was on a Teams meeting a few years ago and one lady, waiting her turn to give her update on the round robin catch up, took her laptop with her while she went to the loo. Tragically she had her camera on and the PC facing her in the loo. I'm just relieved I was multi-tasking and missed the show!

So one meeting would be funny. However, you do need to do your meetings in a space which is quiet and where the dog and your DH cannot disturb. After a while if I were your Manager, I would find this irritating and I would question how productive you were being from home.

I’d be worried that someone had the meeting on record and now your clip is on social media as comedy gold. Pets hilariously gatecrashing zoom meetings seems to be a whole genre, I’ve seen loads.

But surely it depends on what the meeting was about? The OP said an important meeting but there’s no other context to judge. A meeting about their company losing a shit ton of money meaning jobs are at risk and the speaker was distracted by what was going on with the OP and others were worried, no I wouldn’t be laughing it off. Quick informal catch up meeting with a known team, yeah laugh it off this one time.

It doesn't really matter whether its Rule, Brittania or the Ace of Spades. It's an unprofessional and irritating distraction.

I’d just say to you if I was your LM to please have meetings with closed door/ away from animals and ppl etc

Absolutely hilarious 😂 sorry I know this probably wasn't the answer you were looking for but really made me laugh 😆 the DH singing just to put the top on it !

Oh give over
Unclench a little!

I'd have been vaguely amused but I'd also be thinking that you weren't taking the meeting very seriously or showing a great deal of respect for the time of your colleagues.

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect someone attending a meeting to do their best to ensure that they are somewhere they will be undisturbed for the duration. If it were me, I'd have let whoever was in the house with me know I was going to be on a meeting and have the dog in another room. Otherwise there is a danger that people will think you are taking the piss working from home on the sofa with your dog and husband distracting you.

I’m pretty laid back but would be concerned if my team member didn’t appear to have a dedicated work space away from distractions such as a dog and people playing music. Regardless of whether he thought I was on a teams call my DH wouldn’t blare music in the middle of the working day unless we were on a lunch break together.

I wfh most days and have a dedicated space with a desk, monitor etc. In my direct team this would just be laughed off but Id be sure it didn’t happen again!
Sometimes if I have an admin/email day I will set up on the sofa. DH is very senior at work and they dont do video calls at his work, just audio so his WFH days he is based on the sofa and he will use dd’s room if he needs an additional screen or a room with the door closed.
In 2020 we had an all team call with director and everyone was laughing, because DD was behind me doing the walrus with breadsticks. But in lockdown I think there was a bit of an expectation that children or pets may appear.
my puppy did join a teams call once and it totally derailed the call because everyone wanted to see him. Also embarrassing!
As a one off I expect your line manager will just check in on your WFH space. Im surprised they didn’t before now tbh? Its the first thing my new line managers have checked