For women who bought her book to read “practical tips on how to make it in a male-dominated workplace,” Fey recommends that they avoid pigtails and tube tops and that they “[c]ry sparingly” (3). For parents who bought the book “to learn how to raise an achievement-oriented, drug-free, adult virgin,” Fey offers that “[t]he essential ingredients […] are a strong father figure, bad skin, and a child-sized colonial-lady outfit” (3).

Fey, executive producer of her show, 30 Rock, calls her book Bossypants because people frequently ask her whether it’s hard for her to be the boss—something they don’t, she notes, ask men. Years of experience have taught her a lot “about what it means to be the boss of people” (5). It can require different approaches at different times, but “[i]n most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way” (5).

She concludes her introduction by sharing three photos of herself. In the first, she is a young girl with a shaggy haircut, dressed to play soccer. In the second, she’s an adult posing glamorously in a fancy gown. In the third, she’s a girl on roller-skates, with a bowl haircut and a frilly dress.