Zooming from the bathroom? Our meeting bad habits revealed in poll

At Fellow, we’ve dug deep into company-wide meeting data, such as how many hours we spend in meetings per week, or how many attendees is too many attendees.

However, as remote workers,  we all also have our own personal meeting habits, even if they’re not always the recommended best practices. .

Recently, SEO expert Eli Schwartz ran a poll on X asking workers about their personal meeting habits and the results may surprise you. For example, how many people are taking calls while in the bathroom? Perhaps more than you’d think!

Eli created the poll, which he promoted on X, after hearing a toilet flush on a call he was on. That got him curious about what people are really up to when they’re supposed to be focused on a call.

The poll had 169 responses, with most being in the US and about half being from men, half being from women, other genders, or those who preferred not to say. The ages were fairly evenly split, with about a third being over 45 and 12.5% being aged 18 to 25. 

Here are some highlights.

Our cameras aren’t always on

Company meeting culture varies across organizations, including how often employees are expected to have their cameras on for meetings. And it turns out many of us would rather keep it off, at least for some of the time.

For virtual meetings, only about 30% say they keep their camera on at least 75% of the time. A further 22.6% keep the camera on 50 to 75% of the time, and another 16.7% say it’s only only a quarter to half of the time. A camera-shy 23.2% have it on less than 25% of the time, and a mysterious 7.7% said they never turn their camera on in virtual meetings.

Keeping your camera on is generally good etiquette — it allows for body language to become part of the conversation and shows your colleagues that you’re paying attention. However, research published in the Harvard Business Review also found that staying on camera for long periods of time can contribute to meeting fatigue.

As a rule of thumb, the smaller the meeting, the more polite it is to have your camera on and be visually engaged. Keeping it off for a large Town Hall where you’re not speaking isn’t as big a faux pas. If you’re always in meetings where you don’t need to be either seen or heard, that’s a sign that too many people were invited. Research shows meetings are less likely to be productive with eight or more attendees.

But we’re good at muting ourselves

We’ve all experienced a virtual meeting where you can hear some background noise, whether it’s a dog barking, or someone’s home renovation. However, it turns out we’re all pretty mindful about when to use the mute button.

The results show that 92.2% mute themselves when they’re not talking.

In this era of virtual meetings being the norm, it’s considered polite to mute yourself when you’re not talking so that any background noise — whether a clinking coffee mug or a sneeze — doesn’t distract from whoever is speaking.

We’re multitasking during meetings

Another meeting etiquette no-no is multitasking during a meeting, such as sending emails, checking your phone, and scrolling through Facebook. Yet, most of us still do it.

The poll found that 84.5% of us admit to checking and replying to emails in another tab during meetings.

And it’s not just email — we’re also on social media. The poll found that 63.7% say they check social media during meetings, whether that’s X, Facebook, Snapchat, or TikTok.

If your meetings seem to have a lot of people not paying attention, that’s a good indication that the meeting may not have been planned well and the conversation is going off-topic. To combat this, make sure your meetings always have a clear purpose and start with a collaborative agenda.

We’re having side conversations

Another potential distraction during meetings that many respondents are taking part in is having private side conversations during virtual meetings.

In total, 70.8% said they were typing away in Slack, Teams, or text during calls.

We’re taking sneaky screenshots

While it would be very impolite to take out your phone and snap a photo during an in-person meeting, we’re more lax when it comes to virtual meetings.

The poll found that 47.9% of us have taken a screenshot during a meeting to share with someone who wasn’t on the call. To be fair, this is often done to bring someone up to speed on a slide or some data. Worth noting is that with Fellow’s AI Copilot, you can easily record and share recaps of your meetings — no need to perfectly time a screenshot.

We’re meeting on the go, while we go

Sometimes nature calls at inopportune moments. Case in point, an astounding 49.4% of respondents admitted to participating in a virtual meeting while in the bathroom.

If you really have to go, it’s better to politely excuse yourself in chat, turn off your camera and microphone, and leave your laptop behind while you do your business.

We’re fully dressed (mostly)

As virtual meetings became more the norm during the pandemic, a trend started of dressing only from the top-up. As in, a blazer the camera can see, but a pair of sweatpants that it can’t. This has been referred to as having a “Zoom shirt” or “Zoom mullet.”

This poll found that just under a third — 29.9% — admit they’ve attended meetings while not fully dressed. Just remember not to stand up on camera.

So what should you wear? Fast Company conducted an experiment where they had at-home workers try different outfits for the workday and then rate how it made them feel. Keeping it comfy (but still presentable) left people feeling their most authentic and productive.

We’ve all had embarrassing meeting moments

Despite our best efforts, sometimes our professional facade slips and we have a goof during a virtual meeting. The poll asked respondents to write in any interesting or funny virtual meeting moments and there were quite a few.

Here are some highlights:

• “I was once unmuted, thought I was muted, and said loudly ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me’ after something my boss said.”
• “We had a meeting and a woman didn’t know her camera was on and she was in a robe and wet hair right out of the shower and she would not stop talking long enough for someone to let her know.”
• “Once we had a man on a 50+ person meeting bring his laptop into the bathroom with him, camera still on. He placed the laptop on the floor in between his legs with the camera pointed up at him. Thankfully his camera resolution and the lighting was low so no one could see anything, but it was still obvious what was happening.”
• “I had my camera on once and was taking a nap in bed.”
• “I was at a late evening meeting with a business shirt and pajama pants and my cat and dog were having a tiff behind me so I got up to let the dog out of the room and realized that they could see my pajama pants. I heard some smiles. I talked about it. I didn’t pretend I didn’t do it, everybody had a laugh.”
• “Had a meeting where someone was in their car and they got rear ended during the meeting. We couldn’t tell at all they just said ‘I’ll be right back.’”
• “My potty training kid dropped a dookie on the floor in the middle of a meeting I was leading. Thankfully she was off screen.”

When in doubt, take a meeting etiquette refresher

At the end of the day, we’re all human, and all have slip-ups at work. Give your team members and yourself some grace — sometimes we make mistakes. 

But, at other times, it wouldn’t hurt to brush up on what it means to have good meeting etiquette that shows respect for your coworkers. 

And a note to anyone organizing a long meeting — schedule in bathroom breaks.