She ignores you for an hour while you answer messages, then appears on the desk the moment your manager's face fills the screen. The timing feels personal. Look at the call from her height and it stops looking like sabotage. You have become still, warm, talkative, and seated in one predictable place, which for a cat is an open invitation with a schedule.
Why the Call Itself Is the Attraction
Your stillness is the first draw. A person walking, cooking, or tidying is hard to sit on and easy to lose. A person on a call stays put for half an hour, lap available, hands mostly free between gestures. Cats who want contact choose the seated version of their owner because that version can actually be claimed.
The warm laptop is the second draw. Machines throw gentle heat, the desk gathers papers and soft objects, and the keyboard sits at exactly the height a cat crosses to reach you. Add your diverted attention and the scene completes itself: you are looking at a glowing rectangle, talking to voices inside it, and clearly not looking at her. Stepping into your sight line, across the keys, or onto the desk between you and the screen is the fastest way to redirect that attention, and it works almost every time she tries it.
Past payment seals the habit. If desk visits have earned strokes, laughter, lifted-and-cuddled removals, or a treat offered to buy quiet, she has learned that call time is when desk behavior pays best. The behavior is not stubbornness. It is a routine built from rewards you may not remember handing out.
The Pre-Call Play and Settle Routine
Spend the minutes before an important call burning off the exact energy she would spend on you. Use a wand or a thrown toy for a lively play session that ends with her catching and winning, then offer a small meal or snack portion. Hunting, catching, and eating is the natural sequence that leads a cat toward washing and sleep, so time the call to start as that sequence lands.
Settle her in her own spot beside you before you dial in, not after she invades. A mat, cushion, or box placed next to your chair, with a puzzle feeder or a few hidden treats loaded into it, gives her a station that pays during the call window. The station needs to be close enough that she is with you, since distance was never her goal, but separate enough that settling there does not mean sitting on your notes.
Refresh the puzzle partway through long calls if you can do it without ceremony: slide a treat onto her mat, point, and return to the screen. Keep your response to desk walking flat and boring. Lift her to the mat once, place a treat there, and give no conversation, no eye-contact performance, and no scolding. Never punish the interruption; punishment near your desk teaches her that call time is tense, not that the mat is better.
Making the Routine Survive Busy Weeks
Rehearse on low-stakes calls first. Use the same play, meal, and mat sequence before a casual chat or a recorded meeting where a cameo costs nothing, so the routine is familiar before a high-pressure call tests it. She may downgrade her sabotage once the mat reliably pays and the desk reliably does not, but the learning needs repetitions in the right order. A closed door with a cat announcing herself outside it can be louder than a cat asleep beside you.
If a second person is home during your call block, hand the play session to them on the days you are rushed, rather than skipping it and hoping. One skipped routine before a long call is often the day the keyboard walk returns in full.
Her call-time routine holds even when your schedule shifts, because Care Teams on the KinsLe side lets backup helpers claim the puzzle setup and shows finished tasks by time.