TIFU by sharing my screen on Zoom with 37 coworkers and a very inappropriate browser tab

r/

So I work in a fully remote company. Lots of Zoom calls, lots of screen sharing. This morning, I was leading our weekly team meeting with 37 colleagues. Big crowd.

Before the call, I had been doing some recreational browsing about “advanced bedroom techniques” on a site I now deeply regret visiting.

I thought I had closed the tab.

I share my screen but because I’m a moron with 6 tabs open, the tab previews show up on top of my browser:

“7 Dominant Positions to Blow Her Mind”

I hear laughter and some coughs. And then one of my colleague says: “you might want to close a few tabs before continuing.”

I’m thinking of quitting and starting a goat farm.

TL;DR:
Accidentally shared my screen during a company-wide Zoom call with an NSFW article open. 37 coworkers now know way too much about my interests.

Comments

  1. Dorr54 Avatar

    Work computer? Yah you fucked up. Don’t mix business and pleasure.

  2. Dorr54 Avatar

    Granted you probably have a great work nickname now. Mr Techniques

  3. 4iedemon Avatar

    Man, even i feel bad if people accidentally see my online shopping tab opened

  4. Lower_Insurance9793 Avatar

    Oh you’re fucked.

  5. TheHellWithItToday Avatar

    Nah man, assert your dominance proudly: do it again to show you mean business!

  6. JoshyJay95 Avatar

    Nah, man, double down on that. You’ll be the goat of the office

  7. AndyC154 Avatar

    Just got to own that

  8. Monstiemama Avatar

    You’re trying to improve your game, that would make me like you more.

  9. ZZartin Avatar

    You are why we can’t have work from home.

  10. Odd-Dust3060 Avatar

    I would just take what ever ribbing is given and if there is a chat with hr explain it like you did and get the reprimand. But do for the life of you know that some IT guy will be sifting through your browser and everything so keep it clean.

  11. PersonNumberThree Avatar

    Look, it wasnt porn, sounds like just an article?
    If so, I’d just leave it at that, you might get called into HR but doubt you will be fired over it. The gossip of it will blow away.

  12. TakeyaSaito Avatar

    Dude… That’s not something you search on a work computer, you are a shit employee 😐

  13. Zeune42 Avatar

    I actually don’t understand all the hate for browsing on your personal computer because it’s a remote position. Many people don’t have a separate device to do there work activities away from their personal ones. Sure he f***** up and not closing The tabs, but the issue is not the device that he chose to do this on.

  14. Effective-Evening651 Avatar

    I’ll drop a fresh recommendation for never using a work computer for such personal tasks – 100 bucks can get you a FINE personal laptop off Fleabay to use for such things.

    If your work computer is owned by your employer, it’s genuinely possible that IT can pull a log of your web browsing activity at any time, if your employer uses tools like JAMF, or other Mobile Device Management tools. Even if you don’t out yourself on Zoom screenshare, you aren’t safe.

    Also, goats are gossipy little fuckers. They won’t keep your secrets either. If you want your non-human colleagues to keep your secrets, dog or cat herder are your best options

  15. BunkMoreland95 Avatar

    Give us the tldr on those positions

  16. purplesprings Avatar

    I purposely open funny tabs in my browser before meetings and leave them there. “Why does no one like me?” Or things like that.

    You could easily play yours off as intentional but of very poor taste

  17. jh_watson Avatar

    Paul from accounts payable? Wow, didn’t know you were on here man!

  18. Pristine-Date-1418 Avatar

    I am actually laughing at this thank you for sharing your misfortune.  The goat farm thing had me cackling. 

  19. fantasstic_bet Avatar

    You are lucky this didn’t cost you your job. Most places I work for would have fired an employee for this.

  20. Oh_No_Its_Dudder Avatar

    It could have been worse. During lock down a coworker, whom shall remain nameless *cough*Ralph*cough* had a giant dildo standing up on his nightstand next to the lamp. Anonymous coworker didn’t have a wife or girlfriend that the toy could have belonged to.

  21. TheMatt561 Avatar

    Just shows you are trying to better yourself

  22. ibneko Avatar

    Mate, I’m not sure switching to goats will help blow her mind.

  23. bokunotraplord Avatar

    Damn, googling dominant sex positions or whatever is CRAZY work dawg. I think you missed a few steps.

  24. Oo_oOsdeus Avatar

    This is the reason you have separate work and hobbie computers..

  25. Alert-Performance199 Avatar

    Most people would have forgotten by next week. Their too worried about their own lives to actually care

  26. su6oxone Avatar

    Sounds pretty tame, unless you’re not telling us about the other tabs. It could have been worse, like porn, or something that would get you in trouble rather than a little embarrassed.

  27. MysteriousGoose8627 Avatar

    You hilarious but sick fuck. What are you doing on your work laptop lmao. You deserve the shame.

  28. weeksgroove Avatar

    Share the app, not the screen. Not sure if zoom can do that but WebEx can. Prevents a lot of unwanted eyes seeing everything you do in your pc. 

  29. juniusl Avatar

    OMG, that’s a nightmare! We’ve all been there. What happened next?

  30. m0rpeth Avatar

    That’s a spicy article at best, btw. You aren’t browsing pornhub. Absolute worst case, it was a popup, your kids messed with you or something along those lines. Give people a way out of an awkward situation and they will generally take it, regardless of how illogical it might be.

    Honestly, though? I’d pull this, just to see the reactions – and then have absolutely nobody ever bring it up again.

  31. Termin8tor Avatar

    Something like this but worse happened in one of my previous jobs.

    I was pair programming with a colleague I got along with really well, generally a great person. Anyway, we were working on “Live Chat” functionality so that customer support representatives could help our customers via live chat through our website.

    Me being me, because he was screen sharing I used the “draw on screen” feature to circle relevant things on his screen. Well, I started drawing dicks all over his screen because I’m a man child.

    The thing is right around this moment, we got live chat working. So, the chat widget pops up and connects to the backend. So my colleague and I are celebrating, talking trash etc, because we’ve been working on this for hours.

    Unbeknownst to us, at this very moment the head of the customer support team was demonstrating the live chat functionality on the back end in Salesforce to some 90 people in the company. So pretty much the entire CS department.

    My colleagues types into the live chat “I want you to touch my willy :)”

    As he typed this I realized what was happening and said immediately “DO NOT SEND THAT”. So, he deleted the message and we think nothing of it.

    Well, the chat widget screen popped on the head of CSR as it happened. It sent the message on key press, not on tapping/clicking “send”.

    My colleague was fired by the afternoon. It was funny af but I felt so bad.

  32. TheFlyTechGuy Avatar

    Yup you definitely fucked up. I work in cybersecurity and I really don’t like getting alerts from people browsing inappropriate websites on work equipment. That sort of thing literally makes extra work for us. Do your coworkers a favour and save that for your personal devices outside of work.

  33. thermight Avatar

    I no longer will share full screen. It’s a pain to swap but worth it. Also use 2 different browser for work and non work or at least use a browser profile that changes background so I don’t share a non work window

  34. WomanOfEld Avatar

    I do not understand why anyone would ever use a work-issued computer for anything not work-related unless it was completely banal like checking the weather– you have a computer *in your pocket!”

  35. littlepurplepanda Avatar

    I worked with someone who had a NSFW Arcane fan art twitter, which some of us knew about. One day in a meeting she switched to Photoshop and a half finished artwork was visible for longer than it should have been.

  36. benan789 Avatar

    Yikes, that’s a Zoom nightmare for the ages