Lots of Teams calls, when WFH, inevitably lead to things being overheard, there was even a radio commercial that did a little song about being on mute and ended with ‘now they can hear you emptying the dishwasher’. My head is odd in that I can remember that but can’t recall what the advertised product was, but that’s not important anyway.
Over the last few weeks I’ve heard my boss’ dog whining and, being very doggy myself, it made me go ‘Awwwww’. I’ve heard a child of my boss charge into the room and begin a conversation with her (and the child get rapidly told to sling their hook).
But I wonder what people on the other end of my calls must think to such true-life gems as:
‘I’m sorry about the farting noise, it really isn’t me. One of the dogs has got a toy pig and it makes a noise like farts when he bites it.’
Or:
‘I’m really sorry about that loud bang. He’s just brought a stone in, jumped up on to the settee and dropped it on the floor. Yes, a very big stone. A lump of concrete in fact.’
Or:
‘I’m really sorry about. The noise. Yes. The noise. It’s the dogs. They blast in and out I said they blast in and out of the dog flap and then they Scooby-Doo around the ground floor of the house on the wooden floor. Yes it’s very much like living in a cartoon. Tom and Jerry. Or Itchy and Scratchy might be better. Or even Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Yes, they’ve gone out now, let’s carry oh bugger, here they are again I said here they are again!’
Or:
‘Oh, that crunching noise? One of the dogs has dipped his head into the bag of carrots and now he’s sitting underneath my chair eating it.’
Or:
‘Can you excuse me for a minute, he’s brought something unpleasant in from the garden… Thank you for your patience, it was a lump of mud poo grass, an actual flowerpot full of earth and moss.’
Or:
‘No, he’s fine. He does that long drawn out grunt to show he’s bored.’
Or:
‘I’m sorry about that. He jumps up onto my lap and hangs on to my nose in that way quite often. It’s a sign of affection. Apparently. Now what were you saying?’
And on it goes, incident after incident, day after day; life in the cartoon that we call home is never, ever dull.
On a video call I was on last week, a kid (about ten or eleven) came into the room and started slapping his dad’s bald head whilst he was talking. Dad very politely told his son that he was busy and to give him five minutes. No-one on the call said a word, but I think we were all thinking that this kid had serious discipline issues!
I’m fortunate that my dog is pretty quiet and rarely disturbs my calls. That is until the postman or a delivery driver comes to the door, and then she goes absolutely ape-shit. She has an incredibly loud bark and I have no choice but to mute my mic, because no-one on the call can then hear anyone else.
Also, I wonder if we have the same toy pig, because Saber has one and that used to make a fart noise when it was squeezed. She has since demolished the farting squeaker, but the pig remains remarkably intact – one of the few toys she hasn’t managed to destroy immediately.
Tough pig.
Blimey, that child! We had two farting pigs. One has lost his voice but continues to be chewed and abused. The other is in full throat.
Adding to my list of ‘sentences I never expected to encounter’ — “She has since demolished the farting squeaker.”
🙂