Book Review: Bossypants

Bossypants by Tina Fey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No one who knows me personally will get extra credit for figuring out why I was attracted to this book. But for those who may not know, I, Cathy Allen, have been accused of bossiness. It's true. It's happened many times and in many situations. And it has always irked me. I'm just trying to help for crying out loud so get off me.

Tina Fey has arrived at a station in life when she no longer has to worry if people perceive her as bossy. She is a rare talent, a genius most of us would not expect to identify with. So yippee for us that her book is a fun and informative glimpse into her interior world. She was an awkward teen. She grew up wanting to fit in and never quite making it. She worries about losing her looks, but doesn't obsess about it. (Her stories about photo shoots are hilarious!) Are some of her recollections manipulated for effect? Probably. But what do we care? It's the sense of things that we are after here, Tina's sense of things. I, for one, totally identify.

I love the paragraph she calls her Bossypants Managerial Techniques: "I'll admit that as a female producer I have a tacit 'no hotheads' policy. For years, to be considered a genius at comedy, people had to be 'dangerous' and 'unpredictable.' I have met some very dangerous, erratic, funny people over the years, people I admire, but I don't want to work with them every day. Go do your own show, tough guys, and I will gladly watch it from the safety of my home. I hire the most talented of the people who are least likely to throw a punch in the workplace. If this is contributing to the Demasculinization of America, I say hold a telethon and let me know how it goes. I don't ever want to get punched in the face over a joke - or even screamed at."

This is true in every field, isn't it? No hitting is a pretty good universal workplace policy. I don't see why anyone would call a leader with that policy a Bossypants, but I know they do. I always want to hit people like that.

Marshall Goldsmith taught me that people perceive my eagerness to help as taking over (being bossy.) Sheryl Sandberg taught me that we need to quit putting that label on other girls and women. "Executive Leadership Skills" she called it. But Tina Fey showed me how to laugh at myself - and that may be the greatest gift of all.

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