A woman on TikTok said Microsoft Teams needs to stop automatically setting her activity status to “away” when she leaves her computer to get water.
The woman, a company employee named Jenna (@jennahushka), posted a rant about Microsoft Teams on TikTok. The video had about 118,000 views on TikTok as of Tuesday.
@jennahushka Microsoft makes us look bad sometimes, I swear 😫😫😫 #corporate ♬ OST – Jenna | Corporate Humor
“Opinion: You’ve been working from home because you’ve been working hard all day, so you go to refill, then you go back, you notice you have a new Teams message, you go to reply, you notice your activity status, it It’s yellow,” Jenna describes her condition in the video.
“What does that mean? It means that people who message you see your activity status as yellow – what do you think they think?” Jenna continues in the video. “Do you think they think you’re getting some water while you work from home to rehydrate to be the best version of you? No, they’re like, ‘Why is this guy yellow? What are they doing? Lazy.'”
Microsoft Teams updated her activity status without her consent, which made the TikToker sound pissed as she enthusiastically continued her rant.
“Microsoft Teams, stop it,” Jenna said. “enough.”
Microsoft Teams has three states in its software: green, which means the user is “available”. Red means the user is “busy”, such as in a meeting or call, and yellow means the user is “away”.
TikTok viewers had similar dissatisfaction with Teams’ activity status, especially since they claimed managers and bosses used them to monitor employees.
“When I’m on Zoom, I turn yellow. I’m working hard, team!” commented one viewer.
“If I minimize Teams, my activity status turns yellow, which is the worst,” commented another viewer.
A third wrote: “No, because I swear it will turn yellow in two minutes.”
In response to a comment, Jenna wrote: “Literally I think 30 seconds is enough, I just need to watch some TIKTOK videos to sue me.”
“It’s turning yellow too fast now. It used to stay green for a long time and once I went to Target’s curbside order came back it was still green,” wrote others.
This isn’t the first time TikToker grievances against Microsoft Teams have gone viral. Other users have similarly lashed out at the app, and it tends to make users look like they’re not working at their desks. According to Microsoft Teams, the “yellow” status symbol automatically appears whenever the computer is “idle” or goes into sleep mode. If the app is running in the background while you are using another program, your status will automatically switch to “Away” after five minutes.
However, some TikTok users have suggestions on how to hack active status.
“Join a meeting with yourself…set your status to green. It stays green all day and keeps your computer logged in,” suggested one user.
“Open a blank PowerPoint, enter current mode. It will stay green,” commented another user.
“I just arranged a meeting with myself, so it went red,” shared one viewer.
STYO reaches out to creators for input via TikTok comments.
Cecilia Lens
Cecilia Lenzen is a journalism student at the University of Texas at Arlington and a freelance reporter for the STYO.
I’m a dedicated content creator and researcher with a strong passion for technology, innovation, and digital culture. At Howh.net, I focus on delivering well-researched, accurate, and engaging articles that help readers understand complex topics in a simple and practical way. My goal is to inform, inspire, and make reliable information