Marina worked from home and took great pride in having a “workspace”: a desk, a laptop, and a ficus in the frame to suggest this was the home of a person who definitely did not eat cheese pancakes over her keyboard. That morning she had an important video meeting with a new manager, so she even put on a proper shirt. Pajama pants remained below the desk, because corporate culture also has limits.

One minute before the call, Marina noticed the ficus leaning as if it were about to personally comment on the quarterly plan. She pushed the pot farther back and caught the charging cable. The laptop switched to battery, took offense, and dimmed the screen. Marina yanked the cable back, the pot wobbled, and the ficus ceremonially spilled a little soil right onto the keyboard. At that exact moment the meeting started, the camera turned on, and Marina, being an experienced professional, pretended everything was under control. On screen she smiled silently while under the desk she held the pot with one hand and shook dirt out of the Enter key with the other.

The problem was that when Enter finally came free, it immediately sent the one thing Marina had accidentally managed to type into the chat: “ffffff.” The new manager went quiet, looked into the camera, and said he deeply related to that response to morning meetings. Everyone laughed, and Marina laughed too—slightly too sincerely, because she was still supporting the ficus with her knee.

After the meeting, the manager messaged her privately: “Thanks for the humanity. And nice plant.” Now the ficus lives on the floor, out of frame, like a coworker after a boundaries workshop. And Marina is back in her “workspace,” looking at it with respect: not every plant can take the floor so confidently in a first meeting.