Official Taking Shower Leaves Camera on By Accident During Video Meeting, Offers to Resign

Spanish municipal councilor Bernardo Bustillo has offered to resign from his job after he took a shower and left his camera on by accident during a video meeting. The Guardian reports that Bustillo attempted to multitask, listening to the meeting while taking a shower, but he made a huge mistake when he didn't turn his camera off.

Councilors in Torrelavega, Spain, had gathered for the online meeting to discuss the issues the community faces amid the coronavirus pandemic. Around half a dozen councilors gathered for the videochat, which was streamed online for journalists and local residents. As it ran past midday, Bustillo worried that he wouldn't be able to shower in time before taking his daughter to where she needed to go and going to his second job as a swim instructor. He took his computer into the bathroom and minimized the chat screen, failing to realize that his camera was still on.

As the meeting continued, councilors discussed cleaning a local river, as he showered in the corner of their screens. While the frosted glass pane blurred most of the image, the running water was loud enough that he wasn't able to hear as his colleagues attempted to warn him his camera was still on by calling his phone. "Say something to Bernie. Say something to him quickly," one colleague said. "We can't disconnect him or do something?" Eventually, the mayor brought a premature end to the meeting due to the incident.

As the video of the moment started to circulate online, Bustillo said that he was at "peace" with the moment and that it was entirely an accident. "Anecdotes of this kind have become commonplace in recent weeks, thanks to the boom in teleworking," he said of the meeting, apologizing to anyone who had to witness him taking a shower. He has since offered to resign, and said that he "can't help but regret the end of my political life."