Don’t breath down my neck

I can’t work in this office with my boss continuously breathing down my neck.

In my spoken English class, the teacher would give a writing assignment and then stand near my desk looking intently into my notebook. I wanted badly to tell him that a student cannot really work with someone breathing down his neck.

Imagine someone breathing down your neck. One situation where this could happen is when you are sitting down doing something (say, writing a test) and someone else (say, the class teacher) is standing very close to you keeping an eagle’s eye on whatever you are writing in your copy. Will you be able to concentrate on the test in such a situation?

For most of us, the answer would be no, and not just when you are writing a test. In any scenario, if each and every step of yours is being closely watched and monitored, you would not be able to concentrate on your work and the results would suffer. This is the broad sense of “breathing down my neck”.

Thus, if someone is breathing down your neck, he or she is keeping a constant eye on you closely observing every small thing you do. Your stress levels would go up and performance would suffer.

Let’s take some examples:

1. My boss gives very detailed instructions as to what needs to be done and exactly how. He also holds daily meetings and checks our computer logs daily. I can’t work in such an environment where someone is breathing down my neck. I am thinking of changing my job.
2. I can live my life without your guidelines. I am fed up of you breathing down my neck 24 by 7. I need some space.
3. You should not become too overbearing and should give too many suggestions to your kids. It’s true, you are more experienced and have seen much more of life but then, they have their own personalities. I think you should step back a bit so that you don’t give them a feel that you are breathing down their neck.