The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth? Negotiating Face and Revealing Difficult Information

Sample

Elaine had just gotten home from working a double shift. It had been a grueling day of caring for patients at the hospital and she could not wait to put her feet up, catch up on her favorite late-night sitcom, and drift off to sleep. Her husband, Mac, was still swamped at the hospital. Just as his shift was about to end, a family of four involved in an accident with a tractor-trailer was airlifted to the ER and needed his attention. He was the best traumatic brain surgeon in the area, so Elaine knew that her husband was the family’s best chance of survival. She presumed that he’d be forced to get a few hours of sleep in the hospital’s resident’s room tonight and she would just have to see him at work in the morning.