“The Time I Accidentally Led a Meeting from the Bathroom”
The Lesson :
“Always check your background before turning your camera on — especially if it includes a plunger.”
Mondays are hard. But leading a quarterly strategy meeting while sitting on a toilet? That’s a new level.
It all started with two bad decisions:
- Eating gas station sushi on a Sunday night.
- Agreeing to lead the Q2 team strategy meeting at 9 AM sharp.
I woke up Monday morning in distress — stomach playing a drum solo, sweat on my forehead, and a meeting countdown in my inbox:
“Starts in 5 minutes.”
I had no time to reschedule. Claire from HR had already blocked time on everyone’s calendar with the subject line:
“🚨 Mandatory: Vision, Alignment, & Synergy (Fun!!!) 🚨”
So, naturally, I did what any overachieving, over-caffeinated employee would do…
I grabbed my laptop, muted my mic, turned off the camera, and took the meeting from the bathroom.
Big mistake.
The Fatal Click
Things were going smoothly. I was surviving. I had the agenda open, was pretending to take notes while sweating through a hoodie, and even managed to unmute myself briefly to say:
“Great point, Angela. Totally agree. Let’s circle back on that.”
Flawless.
Until I reached for toilet paper…
And my elbow hit the “camera on” button.
What They Saw
Imagine 14 coworkers, mid-discussion, suddenly being greeted with the following:
- A frantic face,
- a blurry background featuring white tiles and a suspiciously placed Febreze bottle,
- and a voice yelling:
“OH NO. OH MY GOD. NO NO NO—”
Everyone froze.
Then someone said, very calmly:
“Alex… are you… in the bathroom?”
The Fallout
What followed was both the fastest logout and the longest Slack apology of my career.
Claire messaged me:
“You’re not the first. But definitely the most dramatic.”
Angela (the same one I agreed with earlier) started a Teams channel called #BathroomBoardroom.
IT changed my Zoom profile name to:
“Alex (Currently Not in a Restroom)”
And Marketing made a graphic titled:
“Strategy So Strong, You Can’t Hold It In.”
Now Company Legend
By Friday, I received a mug in internal mail:
“I Survived the Q2 Toilet Talk”
And someone updated the official Zoom Guidelines doc to include:
“Please check surroundings. Do not conference from bathrooms. We cannot stress this enough.”
The Lesson (Shareable Quote):
“Always check your background before turning your camera on — especially if it includes a plunger.”
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