One small step for man, one giant leap for those working from home… in an audacious bid to rid the world of one of the most overused phrases of lockdown, “You’re on mute” has been sent to space – never to return.
With working from home becoming the norm for many, a recording of the tiresome expression spoken in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish has been sent over 30,000 metres away from planet Earth to the joy of millions of at-home workers who’ve heard it hundreds of times in the last 18 months.
A video released today by Pioneer Professional Audio shows their XY-2 loudspeaker reach an altitude of 32,645m and survive freezing temperatures of -60°C while playing the recording. After an intense 2-hour 26-minute flight from launched in Sheffield, UK, the speaker returned to Earth at a speed of 250mph, landing just outside Retford, UK.
The daring journey came as a nationally representative poll of 2,000 adults who’ve been working from home found 51% of respondents say that being told“You’re on mute” has been an embarrassing part of life in the past year and a half and 44% feel embarrassed having to say it to others while on a video call. Consequently, 1 in 3 have had to mute fellow participants themselves (38%).
It’s no surprise that many would like to see the phrase ejected as 10% admit to saying “You’re on mute” over a thousand times and almost a quarter (23%) say they’ve heard the phrase every single day since the first lockdown in March 2020.
“You’re On Mute” was also ranked third in a list of the most annoying work expressions, which featured “Can you all hear me?”, “Oh, we lost you there”, “Can everyone see my screen?” and “Sorry, I have bad Wi-Fi”.
The poll revealed the top 10 working-from-home phrases that have bugged us the most:
1. “Can you all hear me?”
2. “Oh, we lost you there”
3. “You’re on mute”
4. “Sorry, I have bad Wi-Fi”
5. “Please can you just mute if you’re not speaking”
6. “Ah, technology”
7. “What a nice background you’ve got!”
8. “We’ll catch up offline”
9. “I’ll get it to you by end of play”
10. “Can everyone see my screen?”
To see the video in full, visit: https://youtu.be/Dzk-WFT6r7U