With our home lives “leaking through our screens” as my friend Alex says, we catch glimpses of the humanity of the people we work with.
During a meeting today, one of my colleagues had his boisterous kids in the background deciding to wrestle. His Dad voice didn’t quite work, probably because they knew he was distracted. He muted himself on our meeting, got up and tried a louder/sterner (?) voice with them. Some of us with older kids gleefully remembered the times we went through, and joked about the fact that it was someone else’s kids as the current center of attraction.
Help quickly arrived in the form of a superhero, Mum, who seemed to magically quieten the two cute brats. She bundled them away from behind Dad’s microphone.
My colleague continued with his presentation while his wife got the boys to make up just outside line of camera sight. When she walked past him, she gently, tenderly, brushed his shoulder. And for the briefest of moments, I heard his voice soften.
If they’re anything like my wife and I – and I’m certain they are – both of them were able to recognise and acknowledge the help without making a big show of it.