Astrology is Fake But We Need Virgos To Help Us
Imagine: a newly appointed boss on her first day at work. She is wise, this new boss, and bitter. She has recently resigned from a company where the workplace dynamics were completely in the toilet People crying in the stairwells all the time. Carefully maintained ignorance of standard office etiquette. This new job will be different. As she explained to the panel of interviewers, the new boss has a lot of ideas about how to ensure a healthy workplace environment. I am not going to get into them now, because I don’t know what they are. I have lost control of this story, and I have never worked in an office that wasn’t a failed state, interpersonally speaking. I do have one idea though, one tip for the new boss on her first day at work: she must identify every last Virgo in that office, and she must make sure they are all on her side. Without them, she is lost.
Luckily for her, Virgos are easy to identify. The boss calls a meeting on her first morning. Everyone is gathered in the boardroom with coffee and juice and some kinds of snacks. The new boss goes round and introduces herself to everyone individually. The ones who stare just above her head as she speaks, or do a sort of thing where they blush and stare extremely hard into only her one eye? They could be Virgos. Virgos are often shy, and easily flustered in an unfamiliar setting. A Virgo is reading this and flushing hotly right now. The ones who start telling her a lot of very involved stuff about how the coffee machine works? Possible Virgos as well. Virgos like to Help, and they like the coffee machine because it is so shiny and reliable. The ones who look ill at ease in a way that does not speak of shyness but rather of hidden anger: possible Virgos. Virgos LOVE routine, and can hate what is new just on principle. The ones who look cleaner than any human being the new boss has ever seen: almost definitely Virgos. Virgos can have a bath in an inch of water without even using any soap and emerge as if they have been gently scrubbed by a team of hardworking angels. A Virgo’s white shirt is always whiter than other people’s; they make a noise of whispering cotton when they walk past. They never get all sweaty.
The boss finishes her circuit round the boardroom and is fairly certain she has spotted the Virgos. She has one final way of making sure, though. She sits in her chair and waits until the room is almost quiet. Then she stands up with a coffee cup in one hand. She has deliberately made it so the cup is too full. She takes a teaspoon and clinks it against the side of the cup, and a few drops of coffee splash out onto the wooden table. Woops! the new boss says. Ha ha! She begins talking about teamwork, goals, things of that nature. She is scanning the room, making ferocious eye contact. She fails to meet the eye of three around the table, because they are staring with unconcealed pity and disappointment at the splash of coffee on the table. Perhaps they shake their heads, as if to say What kind of animal would just leave it there while she talks. What kind of first impression. What kind of life. I am a Virgo, and this is a crying shame.
A Virgo is reading the above and denying it with all her might, thereby proving to me and everyone else that she is even more of a Virgo than she lets on, because underpinning the Virgo need for calmness and control is an uneasy feeling that these aren’t very cool or winning qualities. The Virgo is the person who is looking at the coffee splashed on the table and thinking Dear jesus who is going to clean that up and when, but she is also thinking What would everyone do if I just like flipped the table over right now and didn’t even care where my pen went. Imagine! Maybe I will do it. What a slap in the face that will be for everyone who says that I am not spontaneous.
She will not do it.
It’s important for the new boss to go through this elaborate performance, as I said, because she needs to get the Virgos on her side ASAP. It will be hard for her to do this, because Virgos are not easily bought, even the exceptionally friendly ones. I am a veteran of many wars against the trademark Virgo self-possession, and it can take years. She has to keep trying though, because nothing will happen without them. O yes. Virgos: let’s give them a high five! They are strong and clean and completely incapable of phoning it in. They will not let a plant die on their watch, and they will teach your baby how to tie his shoe-laces and say “A dog is a fun pet to have” in French. They are kind and funny and will lend you a raincoat. Please don’t lose the raincoat. They are the best judge of their own abilities and I’m sorry to say that they are usually the best judge of everyone else’s as well. Anyone who has ever been assessed by a Virgo knows this to be true, as much as it sucks. They stare at you with their clean eyes and they know. This is true of Virgos everywhere, not just in their place of work.
One last thing, which is true of all Virgos at all times and which I was saving until the end because I am frightened of their disapproval: piss off a Virgo at your peril, because there is no one like them for holding a grudge. Do not give them a good reason to be mad, because they will take that reason and burnish it to a high, coppery sheen. They will put it in their cabinet of grudges, and I wish you all the very best on getting it out of there. They do not forget. Befriend them, because without them we are lost.