An
examination supervisor, usually at the
university level. Job is to arrange and seat
students, then read regulated
rules, hand out the
exam papers and then observe for
cheating or writing after the ever-present "
pens down".
Typically (and in my personal experience) and old, bitter, vindictive bitch who has nothing better to do than read a list of rules and then peer at every student in an exam trying to catch them cheating.
Or there is the male of the species - invariably a doddering old fool, terrified by the bitch(es) of a supervisor.
There even exists a heirachy amongst these poor fools. There is always a head envigilator (99.9% of the time the most caustic woman around), followed by two deputies, followed by an ODD number of scrutineers. The reason for this is redundancy - if the head envigilator is "removed" the two deputies make the decisions, and if they can't decide (i.e. both are in opposition) the remaining envigilators vote to decide on action. Like an oligarchy.
And a big waste of time.