Not a matter of life or death from a doctor or a death in the family. But assuming you are getting bad news like getting fired from your job, or kicked out of school, or didn’t get that new job, or didn’t qualify for the mortgage, etc., how would you like to get the news?
This poll is multiple choice.
Part one:
On a Friday or Monday?
Friday might ruin the whole weekend with friends, but maybe it would be good to discuss it with the friends?
Monday is a crappy start to a week, but at least you had a good weekend?
Part two:
Get the news in a phone call? But then there is the emotion and words that could be hard.
Get the news in an email? Sort of impersonal and no immediate chance for a follow up, but no need to respond or express emotions.
Get the news face to face? You can discuss options at length, maybe plead your case? But you did have to get dressed and go all that way to find out bad news?
I didn’t vote on Part 1 because of the way you worded it. You said “Wait until Monday.” This implies that the person knows on Friday and waits until Monday to tell you. What about if they know on Monday but wait until Friday?
My preference is know bad news as soon as possible. If you know Friday, don’t wait until Monday. If you know Monday, don’t wait until Friday. If you know two days before Christmas don’t tell me on Jan. 2 to avoid “ruining my holiday.” That way I have the most time and the most options to deal with it.
I apparently like to get it late Friday afternoon, after my subordinates have already been told a week before, but told to keep silent upon pain of dismissal. What a buttfucker he was.
A friend worked at one of a chain of stores. She was the manager. One day, she showed up at work as usual, but the lock had been changed so her key didn’t work and she couldn’t let herself or anyone else in. She called HQ. “Oh, we decided to close that store.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because then you might have stolen the merchandise before we could remove it.”
This one I heard from a friend: One of his classmates was expelled from boarding school. (Building a campfire in your dorm room isn’t allowed.) His classmate’s father was on a train, traveling through Soviet Russia during a rather touchy period. There was a knock on his compartment door in the middle of the night. “Your son has been expelled from school.”
I once worked with a guy who previously had worked for a company famous for making copy machines.
The company had planned a company outing for the employees and had arranged for two buses to transport everyone to the outing location. In the email invite it told each employee what bus to get on.
Anyway, they all got on the buses. They left. One bus kept going to the picnic. The other bus went around the block and returned to the work place and once there, all employees were lead to a room where they were notified that they were all being laid off.
I don’t care how you tell me. Just tell me as soon as possible. If that’s email or phone, go ahead. Who the hell cares how the news it transmitted? I want to know fast, so Friday rather then Monday if you know the news by then.
I think waiting until Monday is best, assuming it’s not something, say, disease-related that needs immediate action. I see no reason to ruin someone’s weekend (unless it’s some asshole I can’t stand), and if you fire someone on Friday, he’ll be sitting and brooding about it all weekend, because he probably can’t start looking for work until Monday anyway.
Please to pay me the respect of telling me, as soon as you know, face to face. It communicates to me that you expect me to behave with dignity. Giving people the opportunity to behave with dignity is the least you can do, if you’re canning them. (Assuming, of course, they are not the world’s worst jackass employee whom you personally despise!)
Many years ago, one of my exes broke up with me by calling me at work. He knew that I didn’t have my own office with any privacy. I worked in a large room surrounded by my coworkers, who were obviously listening to my end of the conversation.
My immediate reaction to bad news tends to be wildly inappropriate to the social norm (either I won’t believe it and I’ll laugh, or I’ll get very very angry/selfish and shoot off at the mouth). So please, tell me ASAP, and tell me by text. Email is greatly preferred, because I will almost invariably say stupid shit in the immediate reactionary phase. I need time to process bad news, and preferably in private, before the actual event. I’ve always been a big planner, and handling bad news is no exception.
Especially if it’s something like getting fired, I’d like a chance to express denial, possibly cry and/or laugh, and compose myself without my boss in the same room.
For example, when I saw the twin towers going down in my homeroom in 11th grade, I laughed because I thought it was a big practical joke. And when I heard thirdhand news of a classmate who died in 7th grade, I chuckled and looked for the hidden camera. For the record, I am an idiot.