That video call where my cat walked across the keyboard and muted my boss mid-sentence

Last week I was on a Zoom with my boss and like 12 other people from corporate. I was trying to look professional and not mention that I work from a tiny apartment. Everything was going fine until my cat Oscar jumped up and walked right across my laptop keyboard. He somehow hit the mute button right when my boss was asking me a direct question about the quarterly numbers. I sat there frozen for like 10 seconds before I realized I was on mute and couldn't answer. My boss just stared at the camera and said "Leo? You there?" while everyone else awkwardly waited. I finally unmuted and blamed a "connection issue" but I'm pretty sure everyone saw the cat butt that flashed across the screen. Has anyone else had their pet straight up sabotage a work call like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_jennifer1mo ago

That "connection issue" cover is the go-to move, right? I've definitely pulled that one a few times. But the cat butt flashing across the screen is the worst part. Like, everyone saw it. They know. There's no unseeing that. My dog once barked right into my mic during a budget review and I had to pretend it was a smoke detector.

harpery471mo ago

Hold up, a cat butt flashed across the screen during a meeting with corporate bigwigs... that's next level. I would have just closed my laptop and pretended the power went out forever. Honestly, your boss probably still thinks about that cat butt when he looks at quarterly numbers now.

jennifer_jenkins1mo ago

3 times now my dog has started barking at the mailman right when I'm supposed to speak on a call and honestly I think we overthink these things. Your boss has probably already forgotten about the cat butt because he's worried about his own quarterly numbers and his own Zoom mishaps. At the end of the day we're all just people trying to do our jobs with animals in our laps, right?