Linda Goodman's Sun Signs

by Linda Goodman

  That’s also what wins prestige and success for the Scorpio executive. If she likes you, there’s no limit to what she’ll do to help you, advance you or push your hopes and dreams to fulfillment, along with hers. If she doesn’t like you, there’s no point in reading this. You’ll never be hired in the first place, or if someone else has hired you, your employment under a Scorpio boss won’t last long. Pluto executives rarely have either sympathy or mercy for those who don’t belong on the team. Her first concern will be the team (which is synonymous with his personal goals), and individuals come last. I’m well aware that those of you with a Scorpio boss are already bristling in defense. How could anyone accuse her of anything less than perfection and purity, right? Most people close to a Pluto person have that attitude. If you don’t, you’re probably filling in on someone else’s vacation.

  This sign has a way of attracting people who are intensely loyal. She’s usually surrounded by devoted friends, with his enemies removed to a safe distance (safe for them, that is). It’s as if she drew a circle. The chosen stand inside. Others are kept away by some form of black magic that prevents their stepping too close for comfort (her comfort, that is). It’s difficult, if not impossible for enemies to reach him. Once those magnetic eyes have sized up a person who falls short of the requirements, he or she is banished. That person simply does not exist to the Scorpio. In her mind, you’re not there. She neither sees you nor hears you. Her radar will tell her if you get near enough to be dangerous. It gives one an empty feeling to be looked at as if you’re not there. Being a ghost can be uncomfortable, so after a while, the unwanted person fades away to where people can see him and hear him—to where he can exist as a flesh and blood human being again.

  Don’t get the impression that, to accomplish his miracles, the Scorpio boss has to look like Wicked Witch of the West and wear a funny pointed hat. She needn’t have a magic broom to practice her mystery, nor does he have to speak in sepulchral tones. If you’re about to embark on the adventure of working for a Scorpio executive, the first time you see her you’ll think the whole power thing is exaggerated.

  Her physique may very well be unimposing and she may have the kind of smile you see only on a stained-glass window. When it flashes on, you’ll melt, and think astrology misled you. She’ll appear to be about as dangerous as an Irish washerwoman singing a lullaby. Then she’ll fix you with his penetrating blue or brown-eyed stare, and I hope there’s a chair nearby for you to drop into. By that time, you’ll be thoroughly hypnotized by her magnetic charm. You might even catch yourself weaving back and forth, with almost imperceptible motion, awaiting instructions. She now controls your emotions. After that, no one can reach you. It’s too late. You’ll be blindly loyal to your new, wonderful, kind, gentle, talented, brilliant employer, and anyone who thinks she is dangerous is simply a jealous, vindictive crackpot. She’s the sweetest boss anyone could ever hope to have.

  Sweet? Use adjectives if you must, but sweet? Wonderful, yes. Kind, yes. Talented and brilliant—naturally. Sincere and loyal, of course. Protective and gentle, yes again. Loving? Oh, good heavens, yes. A thousand times yes. But sweet? Emphatically no. I’d like to tell the already Scorpio-employed, plus you who are about to pass through the portals, that one of my closest friends is a Scorpio composer of enormous talent, and I’ve passed his magic circle test. There’s also a tiny Scorpio who lives in my house (you notice I still have control—I didn’t say I lived in his house) and I’m kind of close to him, too. So I’m not among the enemies of your Scorpio boss. You can relax. But thanks to astrology, I may understand her a bit better than you do. For example, I’ll bet you think that, in a crisis, she would just stand there calmly, wearing the same smooth, detached look he puts on when she gets out of his warm bed every morning. She would not. She would undergo a complete transformation.

  Your Scorpio boss cannot tolerate displays of emotion. She feels that one must keep one’s cool at all costs—I mean at all costs. But if the emergency demands instant and violent action (as some emergencies do), she’ll blast forth so much flaming action, you’ll be sure you aren’t watching the same woman. When it’s all over, and things are well under control, her surging, passionate emotions will be back under control again also. She’ll bottle them up inside her powerful personality until they’re needed the next time.

  Normally, however, she’ll be the epitome of deliberate, gentle, calculated placidity, every hair in place, temper in total check. The same transformation as the foregoing can take place in the throes of romantic passion as well as in a business crisis, but of course, that’s not your department—at least under ordinary circumstances it’s not. Her calm mask of poise is seldom removed, except for really major events.

  Don’t make the mistake of flattering her too often. Scorpio bosses are constantly suspicious. She wakes up and goes to sleep suspicious and her feelers are always out for ulterior motives. In fact, one of her weaknesses is that she’s frequently suspicious of innocent remarks from innocent people. Polishing the deep red apple on her desk with too much gusto can get you fired instead of advanced. She may suspect you’re buttering her up to take over. An occasional, sincerely meant recognition of her superiority will be appreciated deeply—just don’t overdo it. The Scorpion’s loyalty to you will be lasting and all encompassing, but never give her one millimeter less in return. She’s a stickler for money transactions being spelled out in detail. Never allow financial matters to get hazy in any way. And never, never, never, never, never try to top her or hurt her. If you insist on disregarding that advice, then you’d better practice walking on eggshells for a few weeks first. Preferably eggshells with a poisonous spider hidden among them. Scorpio revenge is not something to fool around with.

  No problem ever invented is so tough that the Scorpio boss can’t solve it, once he tackles it. All Pluto people have the ability to surmount tragedy or illness in their personal lives and business disasters with courage and superhuman will. As for the pattern of her individual personality, it will vary with this sign more widely than with other signs. Although she’s the personification of the scientific researcher into inscrutable mystery, the all-purpose detective, she herself remains the greatest mystery of all.

  Penetrating Pluto all the way is impossible. Besides, even if you could, you’d forget everything you learned when she hypnotized you with her eyes and voice. The best I can do is to warn you to stay alert and to keep an open mind. The first is for defense purposes, naturally. The second is so you can be receptive to a person whose truth and courage you’ll admire forever. Despite the Scorpio’s unfathomable, complex nature, and the deceptive image he presents to the world, your Scorpio boss never deceives herself. How many of the rest of us can say that with complete honesty? Even those of us who are not considered “ruthless?”

  The SCORPIO Employee

  “But when you have to turn into a chrysalis—

  you will some day, you know—

  and then after that into a butterfly,

  I should think you’ll feel it a little queer,

  won’t you?”

  “Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.

  Offhand, who would you say is the one person in your office who is the most self-contained? Which employee seems to have the most inner confidence, without being obvious about it, the steadiest eyes, the least excuses and the most poise? If there’s someone on the staff with those qualities, does he give you the feeling he can take a compliment or leave it alone? Is he secretive about his personal life? Does he have a master plan for his future? Assuming all this is true, one more question: are the other employees are a little afraid of him? There’s no doubt about it. He’s a Scorpio.

  More than anyone else with your firm, the Scorpio employee is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. He’s entirely self-motivated and single-minded. No one else can be so resourceful and so sure of his own potential. The Scorpio has the power to make or break his own life, and he knows it. He never lies to himsel
f, and rarely blames anyone but himself for his own mistakes. To whatever degree he chooses, this employee can rise, and he’ll expect few favors on the way up. He’s the very last person you’d accuse of having an inferiority complex. (Unless he happens to be a gray lizard, who has turned power inside out into silent defeat. Even so, it was his decision alone to do so. He was not a pawn of fate.)

  It won’t be easy to comprehend the reasons behind his actions. You’ve heard about the ruthlessness of this Sun sign, his desire for revenge, the Pluto determination to even the score, and it may puzzle you that these qualities seem to be missing in his relationship with you. They’re not missing. They’ve been put on ice for the present, because the end justifies the means in his one-track, keen mind. He knows exactly what he’s doing, but you may not.

  Your Scorpio employee’s reaction to you will relate directly to what you can offer him—what he wants from you and from life. If the average person opposes the Scorpio, insults him, treats him rudely, breaks a promise or steps on his tail, may the gods have mercy on him. He will rue the day he challenged Pluto. However, if you represent power and the fulfillment of his private dream, his reaction to the same treatment will be detachment. If you have something Scorpio wants and needs, he’ll take almost anything from you with deliberate tranquility, and with—believe it or not—no retaliation or defensive stinging. The very fact that he’s able to control his deep resentment, and literally erase it from his mind is proof of his awesome inner strength.

  Before you test the theory, make sure you know into which category you fall—the average person—which can include ordinary bosses, friends, neighbors, coworkers, cleaning staff, even relatives and loved ones—or someone who represents power, security and that private dream. Unless you’re positive you fit the latter description, it may be dangerous to experiment.

  Let’s say you’re a TV Producer, and you’ve commissioned a Scorpio writer to create a script, tailored to certain specifications. After the fourth re-write, you can still tear his efforts to shreds and demand that he try again. You can say, “It stinks. Put more jokes in.” What will the dangerous Scorpio do? He’ll write another draft and put more jokes in. You have something he wants, you see. You have the power to produce his script on film and make it live. He may not agree with you completely from an artistic point of view, but you’re the boss. You’re the one who calls the shots—at the present. Later, when he’s a success? You won’t have to nervously wonder when he’ll seek revenge for the past. That’s not part of the Pluto code. You have given him power and you were the instrument to fulfill his private dream. He holds no bitterness, but he’ll make it clear his position is now changed and you’re not to question his artistic taste nor dictate how he expresses his creative ideas in the future. You’ll get the message, and that will be that. Anyone other than you who criticized his earlier efforts, however, without regard for his sensitive pride, may have a few scars to show.

  If there’s one thing a Scorpio knows, it’s on which side his bread is buttered, and who owns the marmalade. He’s absolutely certain he will reach his goals eventually. Therefore, he’s in no rush to knock down any brick buildings. Nor is he ashamed to submit to his superiors when it’s expedient to do so. That’s why your Scorpio employee is fearless. Confidence always breeds courage. To him, everything is timing. With some sort of deep, mystical penetration into the secrets of the universe, he knows when his time will come. This is not the hour to command, but the hour will arrive. No wonder he’s not the anxious type.

  I know a young Scorpio lawyer, who recently became associated with an important law firm, loaded with prestige and lucrative clients. His superior (and I’ll use an anonymous name), Mr. Fink of Fink, Brink, Link and Katz, asked him to prepare a lengthy memorandum for a corporate merger. The request meant that the Scorpio lawyer would get no sleep at all, because Mr. Fink insisted he needed the papers for a conference at ten sharp the following morning. The next day, our hero was at his desk at nine a.m., alert, calm, and waiting for Mr. Fink to buzz him. He had stayed up all night completing the necessary briefs, and his wife wasn’t too happy because he had to cancel the dinner reservations he had made earlier in the week to celebrate their anniversary. At nine forty-five his boss’s secretary apologetically informed him that Mr. Fink had changed his mind. He had decided to hold the conference the following week. It was such lovely spring weather, he thought he’d play a few holes of golf with some clients from out of town. She murmured that her boss had said something about “hoping it didn’t cause him too much inconvenience.” You may suppose that, at this point, the Scorpio reached into his desk for a. 45 automatic and headed for the golf course. But that’s not the way the cookie crumbled. How did the Scorpio react to such boorish behavior? He simply shrugged. He smiled a cool, mysterious controlled smile, handed the secretary the finished memorandum, and said courteously, “Will you put this on Mr. Fink’s desk please? I am going home to get a few hours sleep. I’ll be back in time for my two o’clock appointment.” Then, with the patience of Taurus and the discipline of Capricorn, he called his wife, told her he would be home for lunch and left. Moral: That Scorpio lawyer is aiming for a partnership at Fink, Brink, Link and Katz. Are you wondering if his wife agreed to reschedule their anniversary date after her disappointment the night before? Of course she did. The wife of a Scorpio? If she wanted to have any more anniversaries to celebrate, she did.

  If you’re important enough to the future of your Scorpio employee, you too can be a Mr. Fink. It’s on a par with being immune to nuclear power, but I don’t think you should let it turn your head to the place where you get over-confident. If I were you, I’d keep incidents like the foregoing at the absolute minimum. But I’m glad I’m not you. I’m not sure I would have the nerve to play Russian roulette with Pluto.

  You can expect the Scorpio man or woman to accept the inevitable with grace, if the stakes are high enough. He (or she) will check out the potential with an eagle eye, figure the consequences, mark the possible reward, and make the final decision to submit with a cool head and a definite purpose in mind. Most bosses appreciate and admire the Scorpio philosophy. He knows the price of success, and he’s willing to pay it, without asking for special concessions. When that success arrives, however, don’t forget: it’s half-time—change sides.

  Compared to the attitude of the average worker, you’ll discover there’s another quality to admire in your Scorpio employee. It’s an old-fashioned word, spelled l-o-y-a-l-t-y, rather a rare commodity these days. I’m not talking about lip service to your position as “boss” or the ingratiating, often hypocritical servility of the normal ambitious employee. Scorpios have their own sense of loyalty.

  When I was with a radio station in a small town in Pennsylvania, I was permanently impressed with the remark of a Scorpio program director. The owner of the radio station was the meanest man in town. He was a cross between Scrooge and Captain Hook. About the nicest thing you could say about him was that at times he was meaner than he was at other times. He had one friend—his mother. Since he owned half the town, in addition to the station, he was smothered with respect and obedience. Although the staff called him “Sir,” smiled from ear to ear when he entered a room, and jumped to immediate attention every time he mumbled the slightest request, they made faces at him when his back was turned, and snickered privately at his funny bow ties and squeaky voice. They would have considered his funeral an occasion for a holiday, and the favorite game around the office when he was out of town was writing his obituary, with a prize for the most hilarious one.

  The Scorpio employee never joined the game. He was always too busy with his programming. One day, a secretary asked him why he never contributed to the office hobby. He gave her one of those hypnotic Scorpio stares and said, simply, “He pays my salary. I work for him.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” she wanted to know. “He yells at you in front of the staff every morning and he hasn’t given you a vacation for two yea
rs. He never pays you a compliment. Don’t you have any pride?”

  The Scorpio never changed his expression. “I can’t deposit compliments at the bank,” he said quietly. “I prefer cash.”

  “But why do you take the way he treats you?” she persisted.

  His answer was brief. “When I take a man’s money, I take his orders. When I decide to stop taking his orders, I stop taking his money and leave. Do you have the program schedule for next week? I need to check it before I time the commercials.”

  The secretary silently handed him the schedule, he took out his stop watch and went to work. A few days later, she asked him to bring her a coffee when he returned from lunch. Somehow, he forgot to bring it. He also forgot to send her an invitation to his wedding the following spring. He remembered her insinuation that he had no pride. Scorpions have long memories. That’s an excellent illustration of how and when the typical Pluto employee chooses to seek revenge—against whom and why. It also indicates his personal code of loyalty to the man who employs him.

  These workers are intense and tenacious. They’re quite serious about their careers, and they never lose sight of the goal. Scorpios can be stubborn, rebellious, passionate and overbearing. But you won’t often find them wasting office time by writing humorous obituaries. Death is a serious subject to them. So are you. You’re the bridge to power. Consequently, you’re respected, until the Scorpio has safely passed across the stream to the other side. Smart strategists don’t destroy bridges, and Scorpios are smart. Some of them are brilliant. All of them are shrewd and logical. You’ll often find Scorpio men and women gravitating to work that involves solving mysteries and penetrating the puzzles of life, machines, facts or human beings. Lots of them are detectives, psychiatrists, scientists, surgeons, policemen, researchers, reporters and even undertakers. They must increase their knowledge each day they live, at the same rate they increase talents, abilities and incomes.