Yes, for some teachers asking a student to stand up in front of the class and answer the unanswerable might be a calculated and unkind move. But for others it would be nothing more than an example of poor wording, a legitimate quiz gone wrong.

It might also be, as I mentioned earlier, a failure of (or perhaps an over-reliance on) imagination. In any job or field of endeavour where there’s no such thing as “correct”, only subjectively “better” or “worse”, expectation plays a big part. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve carefully adhered to a brief only to find a client unsure, sometimes disappointed, by what I’ve written, but unable to articulate why. I’m sure there are many reasons for this - one being it was just no good. But often it seems clear that what the client allowed for in the brief and the concept of the completed work they held in their head were two entirely different things: one with a multitude of possible ‘answers’, the other with very few. Maybe even one.

Whatever reason your boss has for asking these impossible questions - I asked Dr Zoe Krupka, a psychotherapist and senior lecturer at The Cairnmillar Institute, whether there was a term to describe them, and she told me they were close relatives of the impossible demand - I do worry that in some instances they’re using them as an opportunity to demean you in front of others.

Even if the questions themselves are asked in good faith, the public humiliation is totally unnecessary. What is your boss trying to achieve by doing that? Shame you into improvement?

In the same way it’s impossible to answer your boss’s questions, it’s impossible to know beyond reasonable doubt what’s going on here. But it seems likely, whether maliciously or because your boss has unrealistic expectations or is just bad at managing people, that you’re being set up to fail.