My cat walked across my keyboard during a job interview and hit send on a half-typed message

I was in the middle of a Zoom interview for a tech support role last Tuesday when my cat Loki jumped up and walked right across my keyboard. He somehow hit enter on a message in the chat box that just said "hang on, my cat is" with nothing after it. The interviewer paused and said "is that your assistant?" with a straight face. I had to explain that my cat basically typed a ransom note mid-sentence. Has anyone else had a pet completely derail a video call like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

elizabeths511mo ago

Did the interviewer just roll with it or did they bring it up later too because that's the part that gets me, like is it better if they make a joke right there and move on or if they circle back to it at the end when they're making their decision. My sister had her bird scream into her mic during a call with her boss and she said the awkward silence after was way worse than if someone had just laughed it off. It feels like if you can recover smoothly and keep talking it shows you can handle surprises but the ones who freeze or over-apologize are the ones who don't get callbacks. What was the vibe like from the other side of the screen once you got past the cat interruption.

the_jessica1mo ago

Did your cat at least look proud of himself when he did it? A friend of mine had her dog knock over her laptop during a virtual interview for a social media job. The screen went black and she could hear the interviewer asking if she was okay while she was chasing the dog around the room. She ended up getting the job though, guess they liked her scramble.

josephmartin1mo ago

Laughed out loud when I read this, mostly because my cat totally had that smug look after he did it. He just sat there licking his paw like "yeah, I saw the deadline, wanted to test your reflexes." At least your friend's scramble turned into a job offer, so she's officially the most memorable candidate they interviewed

wendy6281mo ago

My cat once knocked my phone out of my hand mid call with a client, right as I was saying "let me send you that invoice." It hit the floor and the call dropped. By the time I fumbled to call back, he was sprawled across my keyboard like a fluffy paperweight. I got the payment later that day, so apparently my scramble was professional enough. Animals really know how to test if you can roll with the chaos.