And do you tell others to brace themselves (or similar phrase) when you have seriously bad news to deliver?
I hate it. When somebody tells me to brace myself, my mind races a mile a minute thinking of all the horrible things I’m about to be told. Best friend dead? House burnt down? Meteor headed towards the earth?
No. The cat threw up on the sofa. :rolleyes:
If somebody told you to brace yourself for bad news, what would you do? Grab the arms of the chair so you don’t fall out? I’m thinking this has to be one of the most useless phrases of all time.
My husband is the best person to deliver bad news ever. When a lady I knew died, he called me on my cell phone at Wal-Mart and said “Do you know someone named Paulette?” I answered yes and he said “Oh yeah? Well she’s dead apparently.”
:eek:
There’s never a set up of any sort- news just comes at you, just like that. It’s like living with Walter Cronkite. “And THAT’S the way it was.”
I’ve only been told unexpected bad news once and it was handled really well. A co-worker asked me if I had a minute and took me into an office. She said, “I was hoping I your dad would call back before this, but he hasn’t. Your brother has been in a serious accident and has been flown to Harborview. Call your dad right away and let us know if you need anything.” Very straightforward and I appreciated that she didn’t hem and haw beforehand.
Brace yourself is more something I would use for faux surprise news: Brace yourself–my mom remembered your birthday.
I once had to tell a lady that I didn’t know that her husband had been in a car accident. On his advice, I opened with, “Everything is fine. Your husband is fine. He has been in a car accident, but everything is fine.” I answered a lot of questions and kept reassuring her, and then she drove off to get him. In a situation like that, where there is scary news but no terrible outcome, I would do that again in a heartbeat. They hear the good stuff up front.
Truly terrible news, I’d just say straight out, as kindly as possible. People can’t deal with stuff until they know what it is.
I, too, hate the, “Um, I have bad news” leader. Himself does this sometimes, and I always think he’s going to tell me someone has died. Usually, it’s more like he hit the mailbox and dented the bumper. Which I don’t care about at all, on the grand scale. But don’t give me a heart attack about it, okay?
I don’t use the “brace yourself” phrase. For surprising, exciting or bad news, I say, “Are you sat down?” if talking on the phone. Otherwise, face-to-face, I just say what I need to say.
As for me being the recipient: an indrawn and held breath usually does it.
I haven’t said it in more than five years. Not since the summer I had a visiting scholar from Spain subletting my apartment. She called home every day, apparently under the impression that she was charging her calls to her phone card. Turned out the phone card didn’t work.
Come September, I get the phone bill. $800 and change. First thing next morning, I send her an e-mail with the subject line “Bad news. Brace yourself”…
… and then open a news site and discover that people have been flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon :smack: (I can only take comfort in the fact that an $800 phone bill must have seemed really trivial in comparison to everything that must have been going through her head before she opened the e-mail.)
I end up with all sorts of awful things racing through my mind too. Usually, particularly if it’s my mom saying it, I try to remember what bad thing I might have done to get myself into trouble… just to gauge how much trouble I’m in.
The worst aprt is, my mother uses the same opening for all kinds of things.
“I have some sad news” in a sad-but-not-too-sad tone.
The two most recent things that I can remember following this statement were,
“your dad will be out of town on Saturday, so you’re going to have to take the bus home from work.”
and
“Anne called. Your friend William killed himself yesterday.”
You’ve probably heard the old Army joke. The lieutenant calls the sergeant into his office and says, “Sergeant, Private Jenkins’s mom died last night. Please break it to him gently.” “Yes, sir!” The sergeant calls his platoon into formation and barks, “Everyone whose mother is still alive, take one step forward… not so fast there, Jenkins!”
I’d rather get really bad news with no more preamble than, “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but…” Telling someone to “brace yourself” only leads to worst-case-scenario leaps of the imagination that no one should be forced to make.
A lot of my relatives died during my childhood years and I just remember my parents saying it very matter-of-factly. But during college one of our friends was killed and my best friend said
I think you should sit down.
I’m sitting there agape until he tells me and then I felt like I had to be all dramatic about it. Of course I was sad but shit, people had been dying all my life. This “you better sit down” wasn’t necessary.
However, when my brother had the heart attack last year I had to tell my parents.* I did find myself prefacing it with “I have some hard news” because they had answered like it was a casual call. I then choked up and couldn’t say it for a minute and I feel bad because I’m sure they were imaging the worst. :smack: I did manage to say his name and that he was OK and then go into the details.
Then when he got worse it became 'he’s alive, but…"
*For his part, he prefaced it with “You know I’ve had a rough lifestyle…”
I think about the worst thing that could happen- I am dead in a ditch. Then I figure anything they have to tell me is better than “you are dead in a ditch.”
I’d guess they say it because they’re afraid of looking uncaring if they don’t.
I’m more ‘emotionally aware’ than average but my uncaring mind hides it well, so I expect I’d have to preface bad news in a way like that until I got a little practice. I hope I never get good at it.
My mother once got a phone call that started out a lot like that from my brother’s boss–brother was about 19 at the time. “Hi, I’m just calling to tell you that your son is fine”
(thinking) Right, if my son is fine, why are you calling to tell me this at about the time that my son is supposed to be driving into the driveway?
“It’s not serious, well, it is serious”
Eventually he got to the point–a series of stitches in the elbow, requiring a couple of days off work to allow for healing. Minor relative to a broken leg, trivial compared to death, but not something which was expected, and anytime one must go to the hospital without warning is a little scary.
I don’t like hearing bad news any more than the next person, but if someone has to tell me something I won’t be happy about, I’d rather be told up front without a lot of hemming and hawing, or having to wait to be told.
What I really hate is when someone says, “I have some bad news.” Immediately I go into worry mode and ask, “What?” “I’ll tell you later, now is not a good time.” Gee, thanks for ruining my day :rolleyes: . Why not just wait until “later” arrives to drop the bomb instead of make me wait and contemplate what sort of horrible earth-shattering jaw-dropping news it might be? For the rest of the day all I can do is think of ten million possible worst-case scenarios and drive myself into a state of panic.
I am really bad at having to deliver bad news myself. When deciding how and when to tell the person I always face the dilemma of either ruining someone’s good mood if they are in one, or if they are already in a bad mood, to make them feel even worse.
I would prefer to be just told straight out - no humming or waffling or anything, just tell me.
I tried that strategy once, didnt work so well. I was on an exchange in Canada and had to ring a friends mother in Ireland to let her know her son was in hospital. “Hello Mrs X, Im just ringing to let you know your son is in the hospital…” I think I nearly gave the woman a heart attack. Didnt help that all I could say was hes fine and I had no details.
