There’s no traffic. Nobody steals your milk from the office fridge. You can answer emails while wearing slippers shaped like woodland creatures. Your commute is roughly twelve steps, although that may increase to fourteen if you stop at the kettle.

Then the video call begins.

Your internet freezes your face in an expression of deep suspicion. The neighbour starts drilling through what sounds like a load-bearing wall. A delivery driver rings the bell three times. Somewhere nearby, a dog spots a leaf moving and declares a national emergency.

Welcome to the home office, a workplace held together by Wi-Fi, coffee and the fragile hope that nobody asks you to switch your camera on.

Long before remote meetings became part of everyday working life, Professor Robert Kelly gave the internet a perfect preview of what was coming.

On 10 March 2017, Kelly was being interviewed live by the BBC about South Korean politics. He looked calm, informed and thoroughly professional.

Then the door opened.

His young daughter marched into the room with the confidence of a senior manager arriving late to a meeting she had organised. Kelly attempted to continue speaking while gently steering her away from the desk.

Moments later, his baby son rolled into the room in a walker.

This was no longer an interview. It was a family procession.

Kelly’s wife then rushed into the room, crouched low and gathered the children while attempting to become invisible. Instead, she delivered one of the finest pieces of physical comedy ever broadcast during a political discussion.

Kelly later explained that he usually locked the door but had forgotten on that occasion. The clip became a beloved piece of internet history and, years later, remains one of the most recognisable working-from-home interruptions ever recorded.

You can watch the original interruption in the BBC News video.

Every parent working from home understood the moment instantly. Children don’t care about live television, quarterly reports or international politics. A closed office door simply suggests that something interesting must be happening behind it.

A lawyer may prepare opening statements, examine evidence and anticipate difficult questions.

What a lawyer probably doesn’t practise is convincing a judge that he is not a kitten.

In February 2021, Texas attorney Rod Ponton joined a virtual court hearing with a cat filter activated. The filter gave him a small feline face, worried eyes and a mouth that moved whenever he spoke.

While the judge calmly tried to help him remove it, Ponton delivered the immortal clarification: “I’m not a cat.”

The hearing involved a real legal matter. Everyone remained impressively professional. Still, there was something extraordinary about watching a nervous digital kitten assure a court that it was ready to proceed.

The original clip was published by the 394th Judicial District Court of Texas and quickly spread around the world. You can watch the original court video here.

It also created a valuable new workplace rule. Before joining an important meeting, check your microphone, check your camera and confirm that your face still belongs to your species.

Video filters continued their campaign against workplace dignity when a manager became trapped inside a potato during a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Lizet Ocampo, a director at the nonprofit organisation People For the American Way, had downloaded a potato filter for a little fun. Unfortunately, the filter was still active when she joined a work meeting and she couldn’t immediately remove it.

So, she continued the meeting as a potato.

Not a glamorous potato, either. Not a crispy roast potato resting beside rosemary and garlic. This was a simple digital potato with eyes, lips and managerial responsibilities.

Her colleagues did what any supportive team would do. They took a screenshot and shared the moment online.

According to Ocampo, the team needed a laugh, so she continued with the filter instead of abandoning the meeting. The image quickly went viral, providing some much-needed comic relief during the early months of remote work.

The full story was covered by TIME.

Honestly, there are worse leadership styles. The potato arrived on time, remained visible throughout the call and didn’t interrupt anyone to repeat a point already made ten minutes earlier.

That’s executive material.

Few institutions carry more formality than the United States Supreme Court.

The setting is serious. The language is precise. The traditions are carefully maintained.

Yet when the court began hearing arguments remotely during the pandemic, listeners heard what sounded very much like a toilet flushing in the background.

Nobody claimed responsibility.

The hearing continued.

There are office sounds you can politely ignore. A cough. A squeaking chair. Someone dropping a pen.

A toilet flush is different. It enters the meeting carrying a complete story, yet refuses to provide any details.

The sound was heard during oral arguments in May 2020, when the court was experimenting with remote hearings and live audio. The identity of the person responsible was never officially confirmed.

The unusual moment was reported by WBUR and NPR.

It was an important reminder that the mute button is not merely a technical feature. It is a tiny guardian standing between your professional reputation and the plumbing.

Working from home created a strange new dress code.

From the waist up, you’re ready to present the annual results.

From the waist down, you’re ready to lie on the sofa and eat cereal.

ABC News correspondent Will Reeve discovered the danger of this arrangement during a live appearance on Good Morning America in April 2020.

Reeve wore a smart jacket and shirt, but his camera angle revealed considerably more leg than he had planned. Viewers initially thought he wasn’t wearing trousers. He later clarified that he had shorts on.

Technically, he was dressed.

Strategically, the camera disagreed.

Reeve handled the attention with humour and later advised other remote workers to think carefully about their camera setup. You can read the follow-up from ABC News.

The lesson was simple: never trust the frame preview.

That neat little square may suggest your meeting begins at the shoulders. The moment you relax, it will widen its field of vision and reveal your cartoon pyjama bottoms to the finance department.

Pets quickly became the unofficial middle managers of remote work.

Cats sat on keyboards, sending messages such as “jjjjjjjjjjjj” to senior clients. Dogs barked through presentations. Rabbits developed an unsettling interest in expensive laptop cables.

Dr Hannah Fahey, who teaches at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, found her online classes interrupted when her two dogs noticed the postman arriving.

The dogs responded with the volume and urgency of a security team protecting a presidential motorcade.

Her students were amused, order was eventually restored and the lesson continued.

Technology historian Mar Hicks had a different home-office colleague. Their rabbit, Camber, enjoyed following them around the house, demanding attention and showing a concerning interest in laptop cords.

These stories, along with several other examples of pets adjusting to their humans suddenly working from home, were collected by TIME.

From the animal’s perspective, the confusion was understandable.

For years, humans left the house every morning. Then, without explanation, we started staying home, staring at screens and speaking to tiny people trapped inside laptops.

Naturally, our pets assumed we had experienced some kind of breakdown and required close supervision.

The mute button has saved countless careers.

It has concealed barking dogs, ringing doorbells, noisy children, coughing fits and the aggressive opening of snack packets.

It has also betrayed people.

We’ve all watched someone deliver a passionate two-minute explanation while muted. They nod. They gesture. They make an excellent point.

Nobody hears it.

Eventually, a colleague interrupts with the four words that defined an era:

“You’re still on mute.”

The speaker then repeats everything, but the magic is gone. The original performance had energy. The second version sounds like someone reading the terms and conditions for a dishwasher warranty.

Of course, the opposite problem is worse. That’s when someone believes they’re muted but isn’t. Suddenly, the entire team hears a private conversation, a frustrated comment or a person asking their dog is able to produce smells of a certain aroma.

There’s no graceful recovery. You simply stare into the camera while your soul quietly leaves through the nearest window.

Working from home removes the tidy little wall between our professional and personal lives.

In an office, colleagues see your desk, your laptop and perhaps a carefully maintained plant.

At home, they may see your laundry, your family, your pets, your questionable wallpaper and the cupboard where you pushed all the clutter five minutes before the meeting.

That’s why these disasters are so funny. They’re not simply embarrassing. They’re familiar.

Most of us have feared the open microphone. Most of us have joined a call while wearing something we wouldn’t wear to the office. Plenty of people have tried to sound professional while a pet, child or household appliance staged a noisy rebellion nearby.

The home office showed us that even judges, professors, lawyers, reporters and senior managers can be defeated by filters, toddlers and unfortunate camera angles.

There’s something comforting about that.

Working from home has its advantages. The commute is excellent, the coffee is affordable and your pet may provide surprisingly enthusiastic emotional support.

Still, there comes a point when trying to build a business between barking dogs, temperamental Wi-Fi and wandering family members stops being charming.

Teams often do their best work when they can sit together, exchange ideas naturally and solve problems without scheduling yet another video call. A professional office also gives your business reliable connectivity, proper meeting spaces and a polished setting for clients, without asking anyone to move a laundry basket out of the camera frame.

Office & Co offers fully serviced office space designed to help teams reconnect, collaborate and get back to business.

Our professional workspaces in Rosebank and Kyalami include furnished offices, high-speed internet, meeting facilities and the practical support your team needs to work comfortably and productively.

Ready to give the pets a break and get your people back around the same table?

Contact Office & Co to arrange a tour and find an office space that works for your team.

Call Rosebank on +27 10 142 0200, Kyalami on +27 11 267 0500, or email in**@************co.za.

Because some teamwork belongs in the same room, preferably one without a barking dog, a potato filter or an unidentified toilet flush.

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