
Hysterics at Reason Cat Owner Has To Keep Camera Off for Work Meetings
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
In a viral TikTok video, a cat owner reveals the reason he always keeps his camera off during work meetings, and internet users can't cope with it.
The clip, shared in July under the username @projectliryc, shows the poster working at his desk, with multiple screens open, while his feline companion lies on him, expecting love and cuddles all through the call.
"Camera off during meetings [because] I have to hold my cat while working from home or else he'll yell at me," reads layover text in the clip. The caption says: "CFO: chief feline officer."
Since COVID-19 hit back in 2020, it shifted workplace dynamics, allowing millions of Americans to work from home. Five years on, according to Statista, only about 1 in 5 American employees work from home regularly.
Remote work has been found to make people more content. It is estimated that over 74 percent of employees feel happier when working remotely, mostly because it cuts travel times and allows them to spend more time with family.
American employees are so excited about working from home that about 50 percent are happy to take a pay cut just to have the option of continuing to work remotely.
Employees who have children are more likely to work in hybrid settings, splitting their workweek between home and employer's location, while those without children are more likely to work fully remote or fully on-site.
While most employers struggle to believe that their employees are being productive working from home, studies have found that those with full schedule flexibility report 29 percent higher productivity and 53 percent greater ability to focus than those with no ability to shift their schedule.
Stock image: A man sits on the floor while working from home on his laptop.
Stock image: A man sits on the floor while working from home on his laptop.
getty images
The video quickly went viral on social media and has so far received over 1.8 million views and more than 374,400 likes on the platform.
One user, True Crime with Tonia, commented: "When my husband works from home he has to put a blanket on the counter, where his computer sits, for one of our cats. If he doesn't this little menace spends the whole day trying to do a collapse on the keyboard."
Temptations posted: "Being a cat dad is your primary job anyway."
Made by Nacho added: "Wait is this not normal? Asking for a friend."
Newsweek reached out to @projectliryc for comment via TikTok comments. We could not verify the details of the case.
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.

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The pipeline details make it plain. Homes authorized but not started fell to 263,000 (down 8.4% year over year), meaning there's a smaller reservoir of intentions waiting to become foundations. Units under construction eased to 1.36 million (down 12.4% from last summer), with the sharpest retreat in large multifamily homes, where developers leaned hardest in 2023–24. If starts are the spark, the stock of homes under construction is the flame — and it's dimming. Resale isn't riding to the rescue. Existing-home sales ran at a 3.93 million annual rate in June — showing an economy that looks more like a slow walk than a sprint. Inventory reached 1.53 million, equal to 4.7 months' supply, yet the median price set a record at $435,300. That contradiction is the mirage math of this cycle: cooler demand, stubborn prices, and still not enough reasonably priced homes to create a true buyer's market nationally. Zillow's numbers sketch the on-the-ground picture. In July, prices rose year over year in 25 of the 50 largest metros and fell in 25. The Midwest and Northeast looked steadier, while many Sun Belt markets gave back gains. Listings lingered a median of 60 days — the longest July in Zillow's records — and 27.4% of sellers cut asking prices, a record share. Looking ahead, Zillow's model projects a 1.7% national decline in home values from March 2025 to March 2026. That forecast isn't a crash, but it would be one of the few negative annual prints in recent history. The NAHB survey shows the same divide, only through the lens of builder confidence. Regional sentiment readings say the Northeast and Midwest look less fragile, while the South and West are softer. Buffalo and Cleveland are still plodding along; Tampa and Austin are losing steam. The calm national averages mask the reality of very different local markets. Thread all of those pieces together, and the silhouette is consistent. Starts reflect decisions made when financing was penciled out months ago. Permits and the under-construction tally show a pipeline that's thinning at the edges. Completions aren't adding enough to reset leverage. Sentiment sits at recessionary levels. Rates hold the whole thing in place. Resale is a slow-motion grind. Discounts and incentives do more of the work than organic demand. In a textbook cycle, that cluster resolves into either a clear slowdown or a clean rebound. This one refuses. Building through doubt What makes this moment disorienting is how many signals are pointing in opposite directions. Starts are up, meaning builders are still breaking ground. Permits are down, so the appetite for future projects is fading. Completions are weak, which suggests a clogged pipeline. Confidence is low, and sentiment has cratered. Economists warn that this split personality can be recessionary: When housing can't choose between motion and retreat, it drags on the broader economy. Historically, housing has led the way into downturns and helped pull growth out of them; right now, it behaves more like an anchor. And yet, there's persistence. Builders are moving for practical reasons, not because they're feeling bold. Pausing a start is costly: Land carry and interest tick daily, construction draws are scheduled, and once you send crews home, you may not get them back for a season. Subcontractor schedules and loan draw calendars are set months ahead, so pausing mid-build often costs more than pressing on does. That produces visible activity even when the confidence index sits at 32. On the sell side, absorption is coming less from fresh demand than from the tactics already noted — deals engineered to close rather than buyers storming the gates. The engine turns; conviction doesn't. The question is how long this stall in confidence can last. If rates ease, permits could revive, completions could catch up, and confidence might finally crawl out of the 30s. If they don't, today's twilight could turn into tomorrow's downturn. For now, the market stays suspended: busy cranes, bored confidence, and a housing sector that's stuck in neutral. And then there's the housing shortage, the underlying condition that blunts the downside and complicates the upside. Freddie Mac pegs the national shortfall at 3.7 million homes as of late 2024. That deficit is one reason you don't see widespread discounting even when demand cools; there simply isn't enough inventory to break pricing power everywhere at once. But a shortage doesn't produce a boom on its own. You still need monthly payments that buyers can actually afford, and you still need a pipeline that says tomorrow's supply will exist. Right now, payments are a stretch for many buyers, and permits aren't exactly bursting with optimism. The shortage is also why the 'recessionary signal versus hard data' debate gets muddied. Housing is usually a reliable narrator of the business cycle — permits lead starts; starts lead jobs and materials; closings lead appliances and furniture. Today's script is scrambled. Permits drift, starts pop, under-construction ebbs, completions don't flood, and the mood refuses to lift. You can read that as a slow bleed, a soft landing, or just a system in stasis until an outside force — policy, rates, a productivity surprise — gives it a push. What would break the spell? Two dials, really. Borrowing costs are the obvious one. A decisive slide in mortgage rates would unstick move-up sellers guarding 2%–4% loans, bring first-timers off the sidelines, and make construction financing a little cheaper — not a cure-all, but enough to move the permits line. The second dial is the pipeline itself. If total permits stabilize and then rise for a few months, that's the market voting with plans, not promises. If permits keep thinning, today's adequate-looking activity fades into a quieter 2026. For builders tracking this beat, the tells next month are NAHB buyer traffic and the permits print. The bottom line is that this housing market is suspended between signals. Starts are rising, yet the reservoir of authorized-not-started homes is thinning. Permits are slipping, yet builders keep digging because stopping costs more than moving forward. Resale looks sluggish, yet prices are holding because supply is still tight. Sentiment has cratered and reads recessionary, yet the sector hasn't cracked. This cycle isn't a boom, and it's not a bust. It's a twilight cycle — motion everywhere, progress scared — waiting for either rates to ease or permits to recover before the next act begins. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data