Tina Fey - Bossypants

For Jeanne Fey:
Happy Mothers Day. I made this out of macaroni for you.

Welcome Friend,

Congratulations on your purchase of this American-made genuine book. Each component of this book was selected to provide you with maximum book performance, whatever your reading needs may be.

If you are a woman and you bought this book for practical tips on how to make it in a male-dominated workplace, here they are. No pigtails, no tube tops. Cry sparingly. (Some people say Never let them see you cry. I say, if youre so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.) When choosing sexual partners, remember: Talent is not sexually transmittable. Also, dont eat diet foods in meetings.

Perhaps youre a parent and you bought this book to learn how to raise an achievement-oriented, drug-free, adult virgin. Youll find that, too. The essential ingredients, I can tell you up front, are a strong father figure, bad skin, and a child-sized colonial-lady outfit.

Maybe you bought this book because you love Sarah Palin and you want to find reasons to hate me. Weve got that! I use all kinds of elitist words like impervious and torpor, and I think gay people are just as good at watching their kids play hockey as straight people.

Maybe its seventy years in the future and you found this book in a stack of junk being used to block the entrance of an abandoned Starbucks that is now a feeding station for the alien militia. If thats the case, I have some questions for you . Such as: Did we really ruin the environment as much as we thought? and Is Glee still a thing?

If youre looking for a spiritual allegory in the style of C. S. Lewis, I guess you could piece something together with Lorne Michaels as a symbol for God and my struggles with hair removal as a metaphor for virtue.

Or perhaps you just bought this book to laugh and be entertained. For you, I have included this joke: Two peanuts were walking down the street, and one was a salted. You see, I want you to get your moneys worth.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am all about money. I mean, just look how well my line of zodiac-inspired toe rings and homeopathic childrens medications are selling on Home Shopping Network. Because I am nothing if not an amazing businesswoman, I researched what kind of content makes for bestselling books. It turns out the answer is one-night stands, drug addictions, and recipes. Here, we are out of luck. But I can offer you lurid tales of anxiety and cowardice.

Why is this book called Bossypants ? One, because the name Two and a Half Men was already taken. And two, because ever since I became an executive producer of 30 Rock, people have asked me, Is it hard for you, being the boss? and Is it uncomfortable for you to be the person in charge? You know, in that same way they say, Gosh, Mr. Trump, is it awkward for you to be the boss of all these people? I cant answer for Mr. Trump, but in my case it is not. Ive learned a lot over the past ten years about what it means to be the boss of people. In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way. In other cases, to get the best work out of people you may have to pretend you are not their boss and let them treat someone else like the boss, and then that person whispers to you behind a fake wall and you tell them what to tell the first person. Contrary to what I believed as a little girl, being the boss almost never involves marching around, waving your arms, and chanting, I am the boss! I am the boss!

For me this book has been a simple task of retracing my steps to figure out what factors contributed to this person

developing into this person

who secretly prefers to be this person.

I hope you enjoy it so much that you also buy a copy for your sister-in-law.

Tina Fey

New York City, 2011

(Its so hard to believe its 2011 already. Im still writing Tina Fey, grade 4, room 207 on all my checks!)

M y brother is eight years older than I am. I was a big surprise. A wonderful surprise, my mom would be quick to tell you. Although having a baby at forty is a commonplace fools errand these days, back in 1970 it was pretty unheard-of. Women around my moms office referred to her pregnancy as Mrs. Fey and her change-of-life baby. When I was born I was fussed over and doted on, and my brother has always looked out for me like a third parent.

The day before I started kindergarten, my parents took me to the school to meet the teacher. My mom had taken my favorite blanket and stitched my initials into it for nap time, just like shed done for my brother eight years earlier. At the teacher conference my dad tried to give my nap time blanket to the teacher, and she just smiled and said, Oh, we dont do that anymore. Thats when I realized I had old parents. Ive been worried about them ever since.

While my parents talked to the teacher, I was sent to a table to do coloring. I was introduced to a Greek boy named Alex whose mom was next in line to meet with the teacher. We colored together in silence. I was so used to being praised and encouraged that when I finished my drawing I held it up to show Alex, who immediately ripped it in half. I didnt have the language to express my feelings then, but my thoughts were something like Oh, its like that, motherfucker? Got it. Mrs. Feys change-of-life baby had entered the real world.

During the spring semester of kindergarten, I was slashed in the face by a stranger in the alley behind my house. Dont worry. Im not going to lay out the grisly details for you like a sweeps episode of Dateline. I only bring it up to explain why Im not going to talk about it.

Ive always been able to tell a lot about people by whether they ask me about my scar. Most people never ask, but if it comes up naturally somehow and I offer up the story, they are quite interested. Some people are just dumb: Did a cat scratch you? God bless. Those sweet dumdums I never mind. Sometimes it is a fun sociology litmus test, like when my friend Ricky asked me, Did they ever catch the black guy that did that to you? Hmmm. It was not a black guy, Ricky, and I never said it was.

Then theres another sort of person who thinks it makes them seem brave or sensitive or wonderfully direct to ask me about it right away. They ask with quiet, feigned empathy, How did you get your scar? The grossest move is when they say theyre only curious because its so beautiful. Ugh. Disgusting. They might as well walk up and say, May I be amazing at you? To these folks let me be clear. Im not interested in acting out a TV movie with you where you befriend a girl with a scar. An Oscar-y Spielberg movie where I play a mean German with a scar? Yes.

My whole life, people who ask about my scar within one week of knowing me have invariably turned out to be egomaniacs of average intelligence or less. And egomaniacs of average intelligence or less often end up in the field of TV journalism. So, you see, if I tell the whole story here, then I will be asked about it over and over by the hosts of Access Movietown and Entertainment Forever for the rest of my short-lived career.