The Setup: Why I Bothered to Test the Hype
Look, I’m a Virgo. You already know the drill. We track everything. We file everything. And we absolutely despise vague, wishy-washy advice. So when these monthly astrology zones drop, especially the career bits, I usually just skim and roll my eyes. It’s always “be more assertive” or “a great change is coming.” What the hell does that even mean?
This month was different, though. I had a massive, critical project wrapping up, the kind that determines bonuses, and maybe, just maybe, an actual title bump. I was stressed out of my mind. So I
decided, just for kicks, to treat the Virgo monthly career prediction—the one promising a “big leap”—not as feel-good fluff, but as a literal, step-by-step experiment. I
committed to logging every move I made based on the star chart’s input, no matter how ridiculous it seemed.
The Prediction I Had to Live By
I
tracked down the specific forecast. It wasn’t subtle. It
promised a major financial gain if I
did two very specific, bizarre things. I
wrote them down immediately on a sticky note. This was my instruction set:
- First instruction: “Seek guidance from a forgotten connection, specifically someone you haven’t spoken to in three years who works in a completely different industry.”
- Second instruction: “Insist on the value of a small side-task you completed six months ago that management totally ignored.”
I
scoffed. The first one was insane; I didn’t want to bother people. The second one? That side-task was organizing the office supply closet. Seriously. I
spent a whole Saturday morning color-coding pens. But a deal is a deal. I had
committed to the practice log, so I had to follow through.
Phase One: Digging Up the Dead Connections
I
started with Instruction One. I
spent an hour scrolling through LinkedIn,
feeling like a total creep. Who haven’t I talked to since 2021? I
finally landed on Sarah. Sarah used to work in graphic design, and now she
sells artisanal soap or something—totally unrelated to my corporate software life. I
felt ridiculous, but I
drafted the message anyway. I
typed out a super awkward note,
pretending I was just “checking in” but then immediately
pivoted to asking for “career guidance.” I
felt the sweat running down my back when I
finally hit send. I
logged the time: 10:45 AM, Tuesday.
Sarah, bless her heart, actually
replied within two hours. She
offered to hop on a quick call. We
talked for thirty minutes. She didn’t
offer any secret corporate negotiation tips, but she
told me about this completely random, niche time management system she
uses to keep track of lye shipments and scent blending. It
sounded stupid, geared toward creative small business. But I
decided to try it just to log the result. It
required me to categorize all my tasks by color and scent association, which made absolutely no logical sense in my field, but I
did it.
Phase Two: Insisting on the Supply Closet
Instruction Two was worse. I had to bring up the supply closet organization. My annual review was Thursday. On Wednesday, I
walked into my manager’s office—unannounced, which is already a huge no-no—and
I interrupted him mid-email. I
said, “Hey, about that Q3 efficiency report. I
think we need to factor in the organizational structure I put into place for the stationery inventory.”
He just
stared at me.
He blinked three times. I
doubled down,
trying to sound authoritative. “It
saved us roughly 15 man-hours of search time monthly. That’s tangible efficiency.”
He
nodded slowly, then
jotted something down. He
didn’t look impressed. I
walked out of there
feeling like I had just torched my entire professional reputation over a box of Sharpies. I
logged the immediate consequence: High anxiety, embarrassment, and zero discernible progress toward a promotion.
The Twist and The Logged Result
The review
came and
went. Did I
get the promotion the prediction promised? Nope.
Didn’t even get a raise, initially. I was ready to
scrap this whole stupid log and go back to ignoring astrology forever.
But then, two weeks later, something weird happened. The time management system Sarah the Soap Maker
told me about? The one where you
assign smells to deadlines? It
forced me to completely restructure how I
handle small requests. I
started batching all my minor tasks based on “scent intensity,” which somehow translated to priority. Because I was so incredibly efficient, I
finished the new client onboarding process almost a full week early.
My manager
noticed the speed. Not the supply closet, but the speed. He
pulled me aside and
offered me the lead position on a completely new, high-visibility task force—a project that
bypasses the standard promotion path and
comes with a massive, immediate project bonus. He
said, “You’ve suddenly become incredibly streamlined; you just
unlocked a new level of productivity.”
So, the astrology prediction was totally wrong about how I’d get the financial boost—it wasn’t the promotion, it wasn’t the supply closet, and Sarah didn’t give me career advice. But the act of forcing myself to
follow the weird instructions
kicked me out of my usual boring routine,
making space for this accidental success. I
logged the final result: Accidental high-level visibility achieved through a soap-maker’s weird time management system. Promotion Pending, but massive bonus secured. I mean, what the heck? Sometimes you just gotta jump through the bizarre hoops to find the side door.
