Do you know someone like this? He (or she) is a colleague, maybe senior to you, but not much senior. He's constantly looking over your shoulder pointing out what a mess you've made of things, even finding errors you'll make before you've even thought of making them.
He's so good at this, the mere sight of him is enough to make you collapse into incompetence, or boil with anger, neither of which improves your work. You hate him and some of your peers sympathise, calling him a snake and a manipulator. But others think he's nice and your bosses think he's marvellous. He knows how to show himself in the right light and to point out how effectively he's on top of you and your error-making ways.
In the bosses' eyes, if it weren't for him, the place would be a shambles. But in your eyes, any shambles going on is his fault.
If you haven't encountered anyone like this, consider yourself lucky. According to recent Australian research this creature has a favourite habitat: the workplace. And he's classified as the systematic bully. Bullying has become a big issue in Australia and other western countries - in schools and the community, as well as the workplace. It's a problem people are more willing to speak up about and even, in a number of cases, take legal action over.
We, too, are recognising the problem in our schools, but are taking longer to look at what might be going on in our homes (plenty of that in the employer-domestic helper relationship) and workplaces. Australian research into workplace bullies, by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has found that almost 70 per cent of employees surveyed said they'd experienced some kind of bullying by a supervisor or manager.
Many people lapse into so-called accidental or destructive bullying when things go wrong, deadlines are tight or stress gets the worse of them. Although this isn't pleasant or healthy for the victims, it's not intentional.