Guest post written by author Anastasia Ryan
Anastasia Ryan has degrees in English Literature and Pop Culture. Her debut novel, You Should Smile More releases on January 17th 2023. Not Bad for a Girl is her second thoughtfully funny look at the absurdities of our modern workplace. Visit her website to learn more!
I’ve always been told I have a resting bitch face. It isn’t something I can help and, since I’m…you know…on the inside of my body, I don’t know when I’m doing it.
Maybe some of you can relate. My debut novel, YOU SHOULD SMILE MORE, comes out January 17, 2023. I wrote it in part because I can’t count the number of times a supervisor has told me I needed to smile more, even if I wasn’t client-facing. It’s a common experience for many women. What might not be so common is being fired for it. That part is a true story. I was fired for my resting bitch face. After the initial disbelief wore off, I started to see the humor in the situation. When I wrote the character of Vanessa, I gave her the opportunity to say all the things I wish I’d said. That’s where my connection to the character ends, but it’s cathartic to stand up to “the Man,” so to speak, without the consequences. That’s one of the things that’s so fun about writing.
I wrapped the story around Sun Tzu’s Art of War, since the concepts apply just as well in networking and getting ahead as they do to moving an army across bad terrain. Going to work is sometimes like going to battle. You fight to get ahead, you fight to avoid rounds of layoffs, you push for recognition. Some get sacrificed along the way. It’s (usually) not fair.
I wish we lived in a world where even the thought of being fired for RBF would be absurd, but today’s work world is already a little bit absurd. YOU SHOULD SMILE MORE looks at today’s office culture, sort of like 9 to 5 for the millennial generation, which, honestly, is now more like 8-5:30. Things have changed; past generations had careers, often retiring after thirty years of service at the same company. Today, millennials are lucky to stay a few years in any given position. Our jobs don’t define us. And if we’re being honest, they can suck the life out of us without giving much in return. YOU SHOULD SMILE MORE came out of my frustration with the disparity between what we were promised in elementary school versus the opportunities we actually have. “You can be anything you want to be” led many of us, myself included, to believe in endless possibilities when the world is far more complex than that. I wanted to take that idea and turn it on its head, to draw attention to the frustration of modern work life in a funny way.
I was also inspired by the office square dancing, desk decorating contests, and scavenger hunts that have peppered my office career. I was once told during a performance review that, while my work was excellent, I needed to “show more enthusiasm” for the office extra-curriculars. In other words, I wasn’t going to enough beer pong events after-hours. A lot of offices put emphasis on these strange type of “bonding” activities, which, for many people, have the opposite effect. I had no idea when I was a kid that adult bonding would be mandatory. It’s an introvert’s nightmare, and the cult of the extrovert is far too apparent in the work world. I wanted to poke fun at these types of events, making each one a little more ridiculous than the last.
And, most importantly, I wanted to write about strong women and the ride-or-die friendships we all wish we had. Every woman in this story has a voice, and she uses it. And there’s even a little romance thrown in, with kittens as matchmakers.
YOU SHOULD SMILE MORE is a fun, irreverent look at searching for meaning in the workplace. It even has kittens. So many kittens.
My next novel, NOT BAD FOR A GIRL, focuses on a female coder who works in a predominately male industry. She gets the opportunity to work from home, and with her gender-neutral name and her camera turned off, a simple misunderstanding snowballs out of her control. She’s mistaken for a man and given a glimpse into what it’s like to be in the “boys club.” This gives her the unique opportunity to see how her appearance and gender have impacted her ability to succeed at her job. Chaos, of course, ensues.
