I Fessed Up My Netflix Lie to the Boss

Today was the day I confessed my small fib to the boss. See, every morning for a while now, when my team's Slack channel starts buzzing with our daily stand-up meeting questions about what everyone is working on first thing in the morning, I’ve been typing something along the lines of 'Just reviewing project A and catching up on emails.' The real truth is that I was binge-watching my favorite show on Netflix. It's not like it’s a huge deal or anything; we all take breaks here and there to rest our eyes or watch some light entertainment. But today, I actually got called out by the boss during a Zoom meeting for being 'unavailable' when she pinged me in Slack earlier that morning, because apparently my laptop was powered off at 9:30 AM sharp while everyone else was online discussing their work plans. So now here’s where it gets tricky. Did I tell her the real reason, my Netflix marathon, or should I stick with some bland excuse about needing to run a personal errand? The more I thought about my options, the guiltier I felt. It's such a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I couldn’t shake off that nagging voice telling me it was time to come clean and own up to this little white lie. In the end, I decided to be honest. Telling her about my Netflix habit was surprisingly liberating, though I did promise to set clearer boundaries moving forward so no one else has to deal with my morning movie marathons interfering with work productivity.