TIFU by leaving my mic unmuted and using my aggressive “baby voice” on my pet during a serious work meeting.

I work remotely, and my company uses Microsoft Teams. We have a weekly all-hands meeting that is essentially just 45 minutes of managers reading statistics off a PowerPoint. It’s incredibly dry, so I usually just turn my camera off, leave my headset on, and make lunch or fold laundry.

Today, the VP of Sales was in the middle of a very serious, monotone speech about Q1 revenue targets.

While he was talking, my cat jumped up onto my desk. I have a terrible habit of aggressively baby-talking to my cat when no one is around. Without thinking, I leaned into the microphone and said—in the most absurd, high-pitched, cartoonish voice imaginable—"Who is a stinky little garbage goblin? Is it you? Yes it is! You're a stinky little goblin man!"

I heard the VP stop mid-sentence.

There was about five seconds of dead, agonizing silence on the call. Then, the VP cleared his throat and said, "Uh... could whoever is talking to the goblin please mute their microphone?"

My soul left my body. I scrambled to click the mute button, but I was shaking so bad I minimized the window first. By the time I muted it, half the company had typed "💀" or "goblin man" in the meeting chat.

I haven't spoken a word since. I am currently updating my resume because I cannot look these people in the eye ever again.

TL;DR: Didn't realize my mic was unmuted during a boring company-wide meeting and called my cat a "stinky little garbage goblin" in front of the VP of Sales.