Ariel is a long-haired blonde cat. She’s very pretty and everyone always fawns over her. Sometimes I think she knows how pretty she is. I’ve commented that Ariel wants to be a movie star.

One of the bosses I had several years ago had a weekly team meeting. Video was mandatory. Several of the team members worked remotely and periodically we would see a teammate’s dog or children in the background. On one of the calls, Ariel climbed up on me and stared straight into the camera. From that point forward, she joined me often on those calls. All of my teammates were men and I often got comments about my cat on the call. That was the start of Ariel’s fascination with the camera.

Another time, I was on a week long training being delivered over video. The instructor and the participants could all see each other via video feeds. At some point during the training, Ariel climbed up on me and looked into the camera. The instructor looked up at the video feeds, stopped mid-sentence and commented about the cat I was holding. I told him that she was also interested in the training, we all had a good laugh, and then the instructor went on with the training. Ariel joined us a few more times during that week of training.

A few years later, I had started a new job and the first week was spent with my new manager over video conference. He was doing my onboarding and some initial training over video. My manager had given me some information that I would need in the future, so I turned slightly to the left to write down what he had just said. As I was writing, I heard my manager say “Well hello kitty. Aren’t you pretty?” I turned to see Ariel on my desk looking straight into the camera.