What’s Your Biggest Work From Home Fail? (Contest!)

[AnkerOfficial]

I was covered in vomit as my co-workers laughed over ZOOM.

The source? My baby daughter. As I was pretending to listen to my boss’s presentation, my daughter began to cry. As a pro ZOOMer, I smashed the mute button. Awkward crisis averted, right? Wrong! Bleeeuuug! Out shot a stream of barf, all over my shirt and pants. In seconds she’d gone from sleeping angel to puke princess.

This was my uber fail while working from home during the pandemic. And all I got from it was a new office nickname: The Duke of Puke.

You guys, however, could snap up 1 of 100s of work from home prizes we’ve got up for grabs by sharing your own Work From Home stories.

The prizes you could win include:

???: Our soon-to-be-announced AI-powered webcam. Stay tuned for more details!

PowerConf S3 Bluetooth Speakerphone: Uses active noise cancellation to silence everything but your voice. Barking dogs. Vacuums. Even your partner’s lame 90s pop playlists.

PowerExpand 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Mini Dock: Unleash your creativity across multiple monitors, all while charging your phone and transferring huge files at lightning speed.

PowerLine III USB-C to USB-C 2.0 100W Cable: Forget just phones. This cable fully charges a MacBook Pro 16ʺ in under 2 hours. And it’s so strong that it can withstand 25,000 bends. It’s practically a cable for life.

PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule: With so many new devices a part of your work from home setup, all those cables might be cluttering up your work space. This compact power strip removes the clutter while keeping all your devices powered. (Only available in the US)

To enter:

1. Comment down below telling us about your Work From Home Fail
2. Share via the social media buttons below using the hashtag #AnkerWork

We’ll choose the 100 best stories to each win one of the above work from home devices.

And if you fancy winning some more swag, head on over to our events page HERE and sign up for the chance to win a Work From Home Pro Kit featuring all 5 work from home prizes.

Good luck!

Rules

• This contest is open only to residents of the US, UK, and Germany.
• PowerExtend USB-C 3 Capsule is not available as a prize for residents of the UK and Germany.
• The contest runs from March 18 to March 29, 2021.

The 100 winners will be announced on April 13, 2021.

Winners Announced!

Many thanks to all that entered our giveaway! We are direct messaging all of our winners to collect address details to deliver your Anker Work From Home Pro Kits! For those who won via social media channels, please double check your spam inbox or message request from us.

If your name or username is on the list below and you can’t find a direct message from us, please send me a message directly on the community.

Please note, the giveaway is only open to residents of the US, UK, and Germany and is subject to other terms as per the website. We are unable to ship to any other regions.

Please send your information within 3 working days otherwise we may not be able to process your giveaway prize.

Winner List:

Benjamin Story
mocasorla
John_Barrett1
Lawrence_Charters
Malg
pateIn01
Hatchermark
zajac.garrett
Lefflerk
Desmond_fuller
Tank
Zelannii
Yinka_agbedee
johnfilii
Rebecca_Deselle1
Marc_Cohen2
Momo_Bobo
jjalk35
Lenore_Maslonka
mephoto99
ntrain2k
giannalapin
ktkundyy
yediydeyah.allen78
Mtsurumo
Shenoy
Beth_Shepherd
stock.mikej
Monk3e
CRS1
Duane_Lester
cru2city
Daemon_Ember
prbarruel
Admiral_Vic
Ray_Reinke
atradem0
jercox
Achimel
Manas_Trivedi
Jorge_Duran
Tank
cjmoore_ct
nojjynb
carlosgo22
ronn1
rhoffman0528
CellyBear
robblawtonlance
VertigoXX
kdeming
curtiskam
barathbun
drdarke
Nathan_Sarver
Michael_Swanson1
Mtsurumo
Scottie_Mendez
magiz123
Gary_Wapnitsky
Fuu_bar
Christopher_Sorel
genedoc
Justin_Holding
Chiquinho
chrisjwaggoner
davidmendoza1337
tim45
tuanchoang
johannes.knaus
Terence Brown
Cherry Anne A
Jonathon Kelly
Paul Westlake
Luke Finch
Jason Watson
Joe Stefanelli
Aaditya Joshi
Ryan Watts
Kimberly K Wong
Paul Chadwick
textiff
sreg036
lauraannB85
TopShotSnipe
YinzMakingBets
pamedens31
ngar_tom
atul_raj_9
tuanhoang84
Stacie Moody
Cary Abend
Mark Darrow
Christopher Jones
James Brunette
Brian Erion
Joel Barefoot
Benjamin Labay
CrissyLou Phillips
Dana Rodriguez

[Shenoy]

Thank you @Ankerofficial for this new event,

My Work from home fail was when we all were at home, poor internet connection with kids streaming movie in 4K, and my Zoom meeting having a choppy quality, and whenever the connection was good people on meeting kept hearing the movie sounds … and had to upgrade to another carrier for better strength connection and also start using the PowerConf speaker

Shared on Social Media

[ktkundy]

First of all thanks @AnkerOfficial and anker so much for this chance to win in this fun contest.

Since working from home started there have been plenty of fails that I’ve faced. I’ll share my couple big ones and spare you the smaller ones.

The first being in a class where once we moved online participation was key and I spent time talking to answer the teachers question when she called on me only to realize I was muted which led to her thinking I didn’t know or wasn’t actually paying attention.

The second was the scariest for me was during a huge math final that I had to take on the computer when I was done and checking my answers before submitting my computer decided to restart and update at that very moment. This led to a huge break down on my end and an even bigger break down when it finally logged back in to show that I had done none of the test and had missed the window to complete it. I frantically messaged my teacher all of the work that I had saved for the short and sewer questions and what I could remember from the multiple choice. Sadly there was nothing he could do about the multiple choice since they were randomly assigned but he did grade my short answer. Thankful I still did well in the class but oh it was a scare and since I’ve taken pictures of all my answers and questions as I go through tests in case it happens again

Third when we first moved online my internet could not handle it which resulted in my mom brother and I all being kicked from our calls at different times. Since then we have upgraded our internet to be able to support all of us doing video calls. So hopefully long gone are the days of me texting friends asking them to tell the teacher to let me back in the zoom call. I also learned that you can mute yourself automatically when you join a zoom meeting which has saved me from the days of teachers hearing my family going oh wait are you really in class do you need to pay attention and other strange conversations.

Lastly I had a very important phone meeting with the head of one of the departments at my school where I had agreed to represent my school in an important evaluation. My phones spam filter decided that it didn’t want to let my department school and and simply blocked his number. It wasn’t until later when a teacher said I should have gotten the call by now that I realized. Curse you spam filter.

So yeah I guess you could say moving online has been a nightmare at times I’ve even had classes zoom bombed, for those who don’t know that means people some how get the link and sometimes even the password to the zoom meeting and either take control of the screen or are just totally inappropriate in what they do. It has slowly gotten better as time goes on. Hopefully it will continue to progress further and get better as more people adapt but still there are only so many disasters you can avoid.

Also just wondering does anyone else’s family think that work zoom calls is a clear invitation to come into screen and wave? Or is it just mine?

Also shared on Twitter
https://twitter.com/k_louisxiv/status/1372582822507126787?s=20

[tuanchoang]

My Work From Home Fail, mostly involving my wife ():

I was on a video conferencing call with my boss and two coworkers. My wife (who also works from home) did not realize I was on camera. I use AirPods so there’s no audio cue, only the green light on my MacBook which she didn’t notice. She started changing her pants right behind me about 10+ ft away cause I work in our bedroom. I PANICKED and yelled out “BABE BABE”. She immediately dropped to the floor (lmao). Fortunately, my body and face took up the majority of the field of view and she was directly in that FoV so my boss and colleagues did NOT see what was happening.

Another time, I was again on video call, but with a virtual background. She wasn’t changing clothes this time but rather she was just trying to leave the room without getting noticed. So instead of walking by like a normal person, she started to crawl in prone position like she’s in the military. One of my coworkers caught it as she eventually got into frame. We all couldn’t help but laugh.

Good times…

[tim45]

Recently, my 13-year-old son decided to play a trick on me. He put a glob of vaseline on my web cam. I was on a Zoom call with my team and they complained my image was all distorted. I spent 40 minutes trying to troubleshoot, unplugging the webcam, moving it to other USB ports, connecting it directly to my pc instead of a USB hub, even reinstalling the webcam drivers, and rebooting. Nothing I did seemed to correct the issue. Finally, it occurred to me to look at the lense on the camera and found a glob of vaseline. I am still cleaning vaseline off the camera several weeks later.

Every time my son comes by my home office and sees I am on Zoom meeting, he starts giggling like a schoolgirl. My co-workers also got a good laugh out of it.

[Chiquinho]

Nice contest for those who are working from home.
Not me,
Pensioner.

Good luck for you all.

[ndalby]

Good contest @AnkerOfficial

Not in the game this time around as I’ve been working onsite as normal throughout…apart from 2 or 3 snow days we had…which involved no working at all Could tell a few tales about supporting those with home fails

Good luck to those entering

[davidmendoza1337]

I had to do a video conference with my team and was not sharing my screen five minutes into my little presentation. My team members thought I was just explaining them the process and didn’t say anything. Such a fail.

https://twitter.com/M1337David/status/1372597537157255168

[chrisjwaggoner]

Between my wife & I working from home there has been plenty of fails. The best one was when my wife was on a TEAMS call with a couple co-workers. She found out she was going to have to train a brand new employee virtually (not part of her job). She went on joking with her close team members of how annoying it was to train new people let alone now having to do it virtually. She was really ragging about how much of a pain it was. There was silence after she finished her rant…she noticed there was a phone number also in the TEAMs call and it happened to be the new employee. Let’s just say my wife’s face got super red & she was so embarrassed when she realized the person was on the call listening in. Needless to say, she didn’t end up training the new person haha!

https://twitter.com/ChrisWaggoner2/status/1372596493526441987

[Justin_Holding]

Biggest fail was having my roommate, just out of the shower, walk behind me. I had a virtual background but they popped through. And all you could see was a body with a towel around them. I turned my camera off quickly and never said another word.

https://twitter.com/bobbydoe89/status/1372600065194397707?s=21

[oneill.seank]

My Biggest fail was at the start of COVID home protocols: I set up a picnic table in the basement and had cords strung everywhere. Several times I lost internet, tripped over cables, and on one occasion even took out the table legs and almost had a landslide of all my gear.

A couple Anker products, including hubs, would have been a much better setup.

[Chiquinho]

I am sure we will ses a lot of “newbies” now.
Popping up only here and hiding till the net competition starts.
But that is normal.

[genedoc]

Thanks @AnkerOfficial for giving us a chance to share our embarrassment!

Working from home for the past year has generally gone well. While my wife and I both work from home, our two girls (13 and 7) have been pretty good about doing their school work, Zoom classes, etc.

No real fails, but I have had to get used to our younger daughter’s desire to always be on camera when I’m on a call! She loves to come up behind me and put her arms around my neck. Due to the Zoom background image, it appears to others that two disembodied arms have put themselves around me! Luckily, everyone seems to get a good laugh out of it!

We’ve all had to make adjustments to our work environment, and I really appreciate Anker being there to make our lives a bit easier!

https://twitter.com/petersw/status/1372612487632228353

[Christopher_Sorel]

Power seems to be a issue as working from home the table or the office are horrible. Sitting at the kitchen not enough room for the camera to wall ratio and need something better than what is in these laptops. I look squished

[Fuu_bar]

I work in I.T., so I am no stranger to working from home as 99% of my work can be done without stepping foot into my office. When we first got notice that we would be working from home indefinitely, everyone in meetings would be as proper as possible. Always attentive, microphone on (outside of the occasional “sorry for the background noise” ) and occasionally turning my camera on if I was in an important meeting with a client for a project. As the days turned into weeks and then months you could tell that more and more people were becoming more relaxed when it came to meetings. Cameras rarely on, microphones off (followed up with the consistent “if you are talking, you are on mute”) and an overall disheveled look because why make yourself look good when you are just going to be sitting around the house, right?

I have been slowly slipping into this and was becoming more and more bored/tired of the same type of meeting that could have been an email. I had just been given word that one of our larger customer that I take care of on a regular basis was looking to upgrade to the newest version of their system which would turn into a 4-5 month long process as there are numerous things to be completed before it can be handed over. Think of it like Apple or Android coming out with a completely brand new version. This ramped up the amount of meetings/calls I had from about 6-8 a week to 4-5 a day now, both internal and with the customer & functional partner company that was contracted to do their testing. I have been working with this customer since they signed with my company about 4 years ago, so it is safe to say that I am incredibly comfortable with being on calls with them.

My wife has also been working from home for the past year and is in a similar situation to me with meetings, so we decided to have a little bit of fun and with our coinciding meetings and play Conference Call Bingo. If you are not familiar with it, it is exactly how it sounds. Words or actions are done on the call, you tick them off your Bingo card until you get 5 in a row. Nice and simple and we turned it into an ongoing wager with the loser having to either make dinner, change the next 4 diapers, etc.

The Fail Day - We had just finished up the customers Dev environment and were going over everything with both them and the functional partner as well as heads of departments from my company totaling about 45 people on the call. What better call to try to win, so I upped the stakes with the wife to “Loser has to find the next outdoor activity that we have never done with the kids before” and we would need to cover the entire card, not just 5 in a row. With this meeting microphones were muted once you joined the call, but could be manually unmuted to speak before re-muting and cameras were needing to stay on. I had a rather large portion of items I needed to speak to, so I was trying to get as many spaces covered before I needed to speak. I was trucking along with my card, covering all but 2 spots in the first 25 minutes of the call. After I had completed my spiel about ongoing issues and what not, I pressed mute and went about waiting for the next action/phrase so I could complete my Bingo card. You can probably already see where this is going…

I was waiting on “child or animal noise” to complete my card when all of a sudden a dog barked loudly while someone was talking. Much to my excitement I screamed “BINGOOOOOOOOOO” while simultaneously raising my arms and turning around to my wife to gloat my win. As I turned back around in my car, the call was eerily quiet. Then I saw it.

The meeting went silent and everyone had a bewildered look on their faces. Panic immediately set in as I was scrambling to come up with an answer to my actions. Then it dawned on me “I am so sorry about that, my kids are watching a B-I-N-G-O video right now and get upset if I don’t yell ‘BINGO!’ before they say ‘was his name-o’. I thought I was on mute”

I see the VP of Operations unmute their mic and say “Oh it is okay! My kids do the same thing with me, only it is the Johnny Johnny Yes Papa song”. Needless to say that lightened the mood of the call a little more as we took a 5 minute break to talk about all of our kids antics while working from home. I breathed a sigh of relief and went about completing the meeting. The only fallout was a quick conversation with my Director about needing to be focused more on calls like that, but 100% understanding that it happened but you better believe I now constantly glance at the mic icon to make sure I am muted at all times unless needing to speak to something.

TL;DR - Was in a work call with a client while playing ‘Conference Call Bingo’ against my wife and screamed Bingo while 45 other people looked on in confusion.

[Gary_Wapnitsky]

I am on 5-6 Zoom calls per day,
At times my integrated or external camera and microphones decide to just turn off, causing me to reboot.

I have two computers, an Android phone, an Amazon Fire tablet, an OLD iPad, and a few things which take up every single one of my outlets.

In my home, there are 28 items in total that connect to the internet, causing outages or slowing at times, even though I have 200/20.

Tech life sucks at home after a year. I need MAJOR upgrades.

External batteries are just not cutting it anymore.

[professor]

I thought I was adept at WFH, I’d mute, often double-mute (mute phone and the application) until one day as I flushed the toilet, I realised I hadn’t muted.

I heard a “Charming” comment on the phone.

Ooops.

[magis123]

As an instructor, my work from home fail comes from my students. I was busy explaining the process of roll/spin/glide with regards to arthrokinematics and I usually keep my students muted but they can unmute themselves to ask questions. Well one of them must have unmuted themselves accidentally and was talking to someone in their home. They proceeded to start talking about how long they’d be in class, etc. and then their significant other asked if ‘your teacher would notice if you were having sex during class because it’s been a week’. Suddenly the chat box filled up with tons of "OMG’, ‘Did we just hear that?!’, and “SERIOUSLY?!’ … to which I replied quickly " you are off mute just so you know and tell your significant other that we will have a 15 minute break coming up in about 30 minutes” and proceeded to mute their mic manually. Lab time a week later was a little embarrassing for the student.

[Scottie_Mendez]

I had an interview for a school, my computer was placed away from an outlet but I figured it wouldn’t matter because I had a full charge. Long story short it did end up mattering, at the end of the interview I was doing all kinds of power management things to keep my computer going and trying not to look like I was panicking. I ended that interview with enough power by the skin of my teeth. 2% battery.