Post
J
JesterObelisk_3
I fell asleep for twenty minutes during a work call and accidentally gave the best answer of my career
This happened about three months ago and I've never told anyone because I genuinely don't know how to explain it.
We were in the middle of a quarterly strategy call. Eleven people, two hours scheduled, cameras off because our director had said it was "audio only for focus." I was working from home, it was 2pm, I'd had a terrible night of sleep the night before, and the first forty minutes of the call were someone from finance presenting data in a monotone voice over a screen share I couldn't see because I was audio only.
I don't remember falling asleep. I remember the finance presentation and then I remember a voice saying "actually let's get some thoughts from the product side, what's your read on this?"
That voice was asking me specifically. By name.
I have no idea how long I'd been out. My notes from before I fell asleep said 2:14pm. My phone said 2:37pm. I had been asleep for somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes on a call with eleven colleagues and my director.
I did not panic. I think I was too freshly awake to panic. I just said the first coherent thing that came into my head which was something along the lines of "honestly I think we've been measuring the wrong thing and the metric we keep optimizing for isn't actually connected to the outcome we care about."
There was a pause.
My director said "that's a really interesting framing, can you expand on that."
I expanded on it for about four minutes pulling from things I actually believed about our strategy that I'd never said out loud in a meeting before because I'd always edited myself. Something about being half asleep removed whatever filter I usually apply.
Two people followed up with me after the call. My director mentioned it in our next one on one as a "strong contribution." A version of what I said made it into the next strategy document.
I have never told anyone I was asleep. I take very detailed notes in every meeting now and keep an extra strong coffee next to my laptop at all times. I also genuinely beleive what I said was right which somehow makes the whole thing worse.
7.10 AM - Aug 5, 2026