My boss literally looks over my shoulder at work. How do I make them stop?

My direct manager looks over my shoulder at work. I don’t mean that in a metaphorical way – I mean they quite literally look over my shoulder while I do certain tasks and then comment on the speed or quality of my work. In fairness, sometimes the comments are flattering, but mostly they are neutral or critical.I am a shy person and I don’t like confrontation, but this is infuriating and I get increasingly frustrated. Is this normal and what can I do to stop it before I lose my cool?”

This kind of unsubtle micromanagement is unfortunately extremely common in the workplace, and can be difficult to combat.Credit: John Shakespeare

There are certainly jobs where a boss asking someone to perform a task and then rating their performance on the spot would be considered acceptable or even typical. Yours, which I won’t mention, is not one of them.

In fact, from your further disclosures, I suspect these are the actions of a boss unmoored from reality. Demanding a show of skill with no warning and with everyone else around you watching is something you’d expect in an “unscripted” fly-on-the-wall TV show, in which office workers are treated like apprentice chefs.

In the “bad cop” phase, the boss puts workers under cartoonishly intense pressure and then ridicules them for their unfathomable “incompetence”. For you, there’s no “good cop” phase or tear-jerking conclusion where you realise the remedial brilliance of their tough love approach and thank them for humiliating you … because you live in the real world.

No, I don’t think this is normal. Yet the metaphorical version you hinted at – a kind of unsubtle micromanagement – is extremely common.

A radical alternative might be to open up a word-processing app the next time your boss watches you and write “I quit” in 150-point Helvetica.

What you’re experiencing seems somewhere between unwanted boss intrusion and full-on office nightmares, Gordon Ramsay-style. I don’t blame you for boiling with silent rage. This kind of thing is maddening, no matter the intention behind it, but how you proceed should be based on what you think that objective might be.

If this is a well-meaning (but laughably counterproductive) attempt at “hands-on” leadership, you might consider giving your manager the benefit of the doubt. Don’t let them get away with this inane practice, but when you do mention it, be gentle and try to get a sense of what they’re hoping to achieve.

If you don’t feel comfortable telling them directly that their back-seat driving infuriates you, a more tactful approach could be to tell them about the audience effect. That’s the well-tested psychological phenomenon in which performance of a task is affected (often negatively) by the knowledge that others are watching.

In other words, if they honestly want to get a sense of your ability, this is a terrible way of measuring.

But what if this is something more mean-spirited than misguided? Well, if that’s the case, your boss deserves a stern rebuke. Sadly, your aversion to confrontation (completely understandable, much more common and not that easy to overcome) means the response can’t come from you.

What about an ally? Is there someone you work with, preferably at the same level or higher than your boss, but at least with some authority, who can ask them to pull their head in? It doesn’t need to be in front of everyone, but best do it on the same day as one of these live performance reviews.

If this happens to other people in the organisation, could you come together and confront the boss as a group, a process that is much less daunting when you’re not alone? If this person is clearly out to demean and shame you, they’ve forfeited any right to complain about being “outnumbered”.

And finally, if you’re so sick of this nonsense that you’re thinking about chucking the whole job in, a radical alternative might be to open up a word-processing app the next time your boss asks you to perform like a monkey for them, and write “I quit” in 150-point Helvetica. Then just walk away from your desk, never to return.

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