A website called Fleeting is offering office workers a way to look busy without ever joining a real call. According to the site at iminafleeting.com, the service plays long, realistic recordings of made-up meetings that can be left running on a speaker, so that colleagues nearby assume the listener is in a discussion. The site presents the tool as a form of workplace self-defence against people who take up time.
How the recordings work
Users pick a meeting from the library and press play. The site describes each recording as roughly twelve minutes long and says it starts at a random point, so the opening line will not be the same each time someone listens. The aim is background noise that sounds like ordinary office business.
The site also includes a few features meant to make the experience more convincing:
- A “Leave” or “I have to drop” button. When pressed, the other participants say goodbye before the call ends.
- A “Back-to-back meetings” setting. When it is ticked, the listener moves on to another meeting that suits the time of day once the first one finishes.
- A looping mode, which applies when the back-to-back setting is switched off and the same meeting repeats.
- A full-screen display. On a computer, the call fills the screen when it starts, and pressing F toggles the view.
Blocking your calendar and setting up on a phone
The site also suggests a simple preparation step. Users can add a fake meeting to their own calendar, so they appear occupied before a colleague asks for an update or drops by a desk. The invitation links back to Fleeting, so when the reminder appears, the user can click through and start the audio.
On a phone, the site recommends using the browser’s “Add to Home Screen” option and opening Fleeting from the new icon. Once installed this way, the site runs full screen, similar to a dedicated app. This makes the call screen harder to distinguish from a genuine video meeting at a glance.
What is real and what is not
Fleeting states that every voice in its recordings is synthetic. The faces are either AI-generated or licensed stock footage. Every name is invented, with one exception: John Carroll, who built the site and sometimes sits in on the calls with his camera off. The site also says no real meetings are recorded. That matters for privacy, since no confidential company conversations are used, but it does not change the basic purpose of the product, which is to make people believe a meeting is happening.
Why the idea resonates, and where it runs into limits
Fleeting taps into a familiar frustration. Many professionals describe calendars filled with meetings that could have been an email, and some feel they lose focus time to unplanned check-ins. A tool that offers a few minutes of quiet can look appealing, especially to people who work in open-plan offices or who are juggling several projects at once.
The approach has limits, however. A colleague who asks a direct question about the meeting could expose the deception, and audio that sounds plausible in the background may not hold up under close attention. Employers may also have policies on how working time is recorded or reported, and a habit of appearing busy can damage trust if it is discovered. Anyone considering the tool should weigh those risks against the short-term relief it offers.
Fleeting is a niche project rather than a large platform, and its long-term impact will depend on how many people use it and how workplaces respond. For now, the site stands as a clear example of how synthetic audio and video are being repurposed for everyday office life, with the creator openly acknowledging what is fabricated and what is not.
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