I once had a supervisor who conducted herself like Hitler. She could scare you shitless. On you like a flash if you made a mistake. Sometimes she’d be behind you, guiding you through a task, and you could almost feel the fire she was breathing on the back of your neck. In those moments, you freeze. And the most simple tasks can become as complicated as learning to speak Chinese backwards. You can’t claim with a straight face that there’s no way the first spray didn’t rattle him. Once you’re rattled, it’s not difficult for your confidence to be shot and your brain goes on smoko.