In Japan, as in the rest of the world, working from home during the coronavirus lockdown has become the new normal for millions of people.

One of them is Twitter user Ms. Miyamoto (@yuka_mymt).

She’s spent the past few weeks working from home, which involves spending a lot of time on the phone to clients and suppliers.

Since schools and nurseries are also closed, she also has to juggle the demands of work with looking after her two-year-old son and five-year-old daughter.

“I spend the day alternating between talking to clients and suppliers and talking to my kids,” Ms. Miyamoto said in a Tweet.

After putting in a long day on the phone, Ms. Miyamoto has to do the housework, prepare dinner for her children and put them to bed.

Unsurprisingly, Ms. Miyamoto feels frazzled, and this has led her to make some embarrassing mistakes. On one occasion, she was on the phone to a supplier, while looking after her children. Forgetting who she was talking to, she inadvertently said ‘No way!’, a casual expression that the supplier did not appreciate.

“Using the right language at the right time can be so difficult!” she Tweeted.

On another occasion, Ms. Miyamoto was on the phone to her boss when one of her kids broke a plate. She could hear them arguing about whose fault it was and then they started hitting one another. Without thinking, she blurted out ‘Stop it!’ Her boss, who had no idea that Miyamoto was with her children, was pretty taken aback.

“I spoke to him really casually, as if I was talking to a child!” she lamented on Twitter.

Ms. Miyamoto has even found herself using polite expressions, such as ‘I quite understand, sir,’ when talking to her kids.

After making a series of posts on Twitter, Ms. Miyamoto received more than 98,000 ‘likes’ from users sympathizing with her predicament.

Here are a few of the comments made:

“Your posts made me laugh. I’ve found myself saying, “Please accept my deepest apologies,” to my kid. It can get confusing, right?

“I got into trouble when I said “Wow! That’s so cool!” to my boss.

“My kid asked me to look at something he was doing. Forgetting that I was on the phone to my boss, I screamed out, ‘That’s wicked, cuz!’

Fortunately, on most occasions, the person at the other end of the phone can see the funny side, and there are no unpleasant consequences. It seems that Ms. Miyamoto’s supplier was also able to laugh off her ‘inadvertent remark’, so all’s well that ends well!