He is intentionally undermining me

[toomanyidiotseverywhere]

At work, whenever I make a mistake, a colleague points it out loudly in front of everyone and deliberately tries to get the manager’s attention, even making eye contact with them while doing it. It feels very performative and undermining rather than genuinely helpful. This happens repeatedly and I’m not sure how to shut it down professionally. Has anyone dealt with this before, and how did you handle it?

description of his behaviour
he says
Sally! look, you have entered the figure in the wrong section while at the same time trying to get eye contact with the manager and sort of smiling 🙄

Thanks John, you are so helpful! [Big smile, direct eye contact with the manager]

Wreck his party

I had one of these (spent 10 minutes in an education planning meeting telling me I was wrong on a point of theory. Quoted a book chapter to prove me wrong... I was the author). I took note, literally wrote in my planner, of his tactics and used them back at him. He absolutely lost his temper at me, in private, so I lost mine back.

I don't recommend that last bit to anyone. He was very accomplished at his brand of manipulation, I am not.

But the bright and breezy public response often visibly irritates such men

He’s being a dick. As the other poster said, reply loudly, make him look silly.
how many mistakes do you make though for him to keep doing this? How does he know?

If it happens “repeatedly” you must make quite a lot of mistakes. And how is this colleague able to always pick them up? Would agree that he sounds unhelpful but perhaps he is fed up of constantly finding mistakes.

Such people often manufacture errors, others deliberately mislead to cause them. Until you've worked with one such its hard to explain, as any explanation makes you sound petty, ridiculous, unhinged!

Slightly louder than him
'Thank you for supporting my training, John, just to let you know, my hearing is fine so there's no need to shout any feedback at me, thank you.'

Would this be a good idea?

John, I’m sitting right next to you — if you spot something, you can just let me know directly. There’s no need to announce it to the room or look over at the manager each time.

Stop making so many mistakes?

@Yellowe thanks for the advice. I do make mistakes — that’s true — and it’s something I work on. I’m neurodiverse and my employer is aware of this, which is part of why the role isn’t an ideal fit for me. I’m mentioning it because a lot of replies are focusing only on “stop making mistakes” without acknowledging that public, performative call-outs actually make it harder rather than helping.

He also does this even when I’m simply confirming a piece of information, so it isn’t always about correcting an error — it’s the way he draws attention to it. I’m honestly considering leaving because the way this is handled at work feels quite undermining.