The awkward elephant in the room is that while the economy is growing, all the money is in the hands of eight people. That means the rest of us are relying more and more on contractual jobs with unreliable employers who sometimes ghost us right before we get paid.
What does your zodiac sign teach you about how you function as a gig worker? What lessons do all the other signs have which are things that don’t come naturally to you but can be developed?
Use this article as a tongue-in-cheek survival guide, of sorts. Remember these tips as you browse job listings and find one unpaid internship after another that calls for prior work experience. Keep them in mind while your employer screws you by not paying you minimum wage because you’re a contractor, despite obviously being a de facto employee. Remember them as another overnight shift robs you of what you would’ve originally made because of overtaxed overtime. You’ll need these tips. Trust me.
To use this article, feel free to use your Sun sign if you don’t know your time of birth. If you do know your whole chart, however, have fun looking at your Midheaven instead.
Aries: Hustler
Aries doesn’t care what the job is or what the pay is like. All they know is that they’re sitting around on a Saturday, wanting to order food but lamenting an empty wallet, so they might as well head to midtown and hand out pamphlets for $50. You will see Aries, even if they have a stellar resume on nonprofit management, out on the weekends walking dogs and feeding cats for money. Their motto is that they can do anything, so they will literally do anything.
Any wise Aries has such a huge number of side hustles, it’s hard to tell what their actual job is. They may do makeup (or hair) as well as fix cars—but only on Wednesdays. Basically, if Aries has the capability, they will do the job for you. The only thing they struggle with is how much money to ask per job. You see, they’re used to judging every standard by manual labor rates, so they’re the ones who end up accepting $10 an hour for making a website.
Taurus: Value
Without lifting a finger, Taurus already knows their value. No matter how small a job they do, they know how to charge $$$$ for it. A Taurus is concerned with one thing: how to make a $1,000 in a day—and once they master this, how to make $10,000 in a day. You won’t see a Taurus working for “exposure” or for “the love of the job.” When they like the work involved, they find a way to make it worth even more. That’s something the rest of us have to learn.
The only problem with Taurus is that they often don’t start doing a new thing. If they’re a graphic designer, then they will stay a graphic designer who doesn’t really try their hand at other related work. Even videography or illustration will be too large of a jump. They will stick to one thing and do it well, which means a Taurus’s Achilles heel is the potential for their skill set to become outdated.
Gemini: Relevance
Geminis keep up—with life, with hashtags, with grassroots politics, with the currents of what’s on everyone’s minds. Any Gemini’s resume will last only for a couple months, at most, because they quickly rebrand themselves to suit the fickle demands of the labor market. It’s like they become a completely different person. When the Oculus Rift came out, Gemini scurried to brand themselves as immersive storytellers. And when it didn’t exactly catch on, Geminis changed their minds and became community organizers. Geminis will stay cutting edge all the time, and that alone is a lot of labor that they don’t necessarily get compensated for.
The danger with Geminis in this gig economy is that of being spread too thin and being qualified for the same things everyone else is qualified for. This translates into always having to compete for jobs on the same level as everyone else. In order to develop a focus and to stand out, Geminis need to pick one thing they like and devote time to it.
Cancer: Talent
Sure, Cancers are incredibly talented at design, at storytelling, at making things, and at getting people to work together. But you’ll still see them taking a thankless, 15 hour a day minimum wage job that doesn’t use any of their skills. This same Cancer will then channel all their creative energy into unpaid fan work on their off time. What Cancer needs to learn is how to translate their talents into paid professional skills.
For some reason, Cancers have a hard time taking risks. They know that their current shitty job pays all the bills, or at least some of them, and they can live with their parents, so why not? They think they can’t get any better work because somehow they believe that they’re the lowest of the low. Cancer, get off your ass and show the world how talented you are. You’ll earn yourself a slightly less shitty job and learn basic self-respect along the way.
Leo: Happy
Leos are great at creating their personal brands, which we all have to do in this gig economy. They believe in themselves and their vision, so they take it for granted that everyone else does too. They show off their gifts freely, whether that’s being really good at drawing or working with kids or writing. Leos don’t keep their talents a secret. Everyone knows what they’re good at. They also tend to do a lot of free labor just because they love it so much.
The problem Leos have in this economy is that they don’t seem to know how to look for jobs at all. Apparently, they have no idea how to create different resumes and talk about themselves as team players when the interview comes around. Part of that comes from Leo’s complete reluctance to work for anyone at all. They don’t want to do the same thing everyday or to think of their innate talents serving a consumerist drive. Well, Leo, you may be right, but you will remain unemployed until you are willing to become a little less happy for a paycheck.
Virgo: Habits
Virgos are the ideal freelancers because they already seem to treat their daily personal lives like a job. They schedule their fun, their poetry writing, when they water their plants, and when they clean the bathroom. They reliably clock in and out of the domestic labor that comes with being a person. So it’s just second nature to do it on the job. Since they’re suckers for healthy daily habit-building, you can be sure that a Virgo worker keeps their body in top shape in an economy where many of us don’t have health insurance.
An issue for Virgos is that they see so many day-to-day obstacles associated with what they do that they don’t have time to develop a grander vision. They tend to get stuck doing the same job for years, never asking for a single raise to keep up with inflation. This myopia is what will get Virgo as time goes on. Virgos need to learn to take a step back and see the bigger picture, while moving on to other work to build themselves as growing individuals. Doing so isn’t just healthy; it will possibly even get Virgo a bigger paycheck.
Libra: Connections
Since Libras know everyone, they receive and give opportunities all the time. Connections are the most important aspect of getting work, and Libras have this fact of life memorized. They understand that your value as a worker is less about what you do and more about who you know, what social demographic you can fit yourself into, and how this affects others’ perceptions of you.
The number one question that Libra struggles with is what exactly is it that they do. Sure, they’ve been working for several years as a facilitator, educator, or tastemaker at several startups founded by friends of friends—but they’re at a loss for what it is they actually do. They can get bogged down by trying to be someone to everybody. However, once Libra finds a personal desire that they want to achieve, they can be quite invincible.
Scorpio: Social Value
Scorpios understand that value is subjective, that people value things differently based on how they perceive them. Thus, they will always know how to create things that are valuable to society. As a freelancer, a Scorpio’s work stands out because it can speak to collective problems that we all go through. They understand that all our ways of measuring value, GDP included, are faulty at best, and they create lasting things.
Nevertheless, Scorpio’s aversion to doing things just for the money can make them not do a lot. They’re the ones who have a huge section on their resume that says “Labors of Love,” which is bigger than their actual employment history. All of Scorpio’s labors are out of love, since they’re selective about what they involve themselves in. The hard part is asking to be cut a check at the end of the day, so they can pay their bills and eat.
Sagittarius: Experimentation
A Sagittarius knows exactly what they are here to do, and they uncompromisingly commit to their own inner goals of growth. This makes their work unique, which is completely necessary in order to stand out. If they’re a project manager, you can bet that they’ll have created their own innovative management style. If they’re a dog walker, they have some kind of dog bonding ritual that they use to endear themselves to their employers.
The only thing Sagittarius struggles with is actually making their whole thing understood by the people who are trying to hire them. If they’re a photographer/lifestyle guru who believes in embedding zen philosophy into visual storytelling—or a bartender/marketer who also does a little matchmaking—their work is really understood only by people who know them well. A Sagittarius should break their passion projects into sets of skills and present them in a way that makes sense outside of whatever industry they’re already in.
Capricorn: Professionalization
Even in this freelance-heavy economy, Capricorns are the ones who somehow manage to find and hold down the 9 to 5 jobs with good benefits. Even if they’re working for multiple startups, they’re somehow making a livable wage, much like people did in the 1970s. That’s because Capricorns understand how to work the system, how to negotiate like a pro, and respect their own work so that employers do too.
The thing that can jeopardize a Capricorn’s career is that they can function a little too much like they’re living in the 1970s. Having a stable job is amazing for your quality of life, but it can also train you to work with highly specialized skills that become outdated when new technology rolls out. And if you don’t freelance a bit like everyone else, you may lose sight of what the job market actually needs. A tip to Capricorns: Do your work, but don’t neglect your passion projects, which will help you to stay cutting edge.
Aquarius: Technology
We live in the Age of Aquarius, and our present gig lifestyles give Aquariuses a lot of what they’re already looking for in life. They do well with a lack of security, freedom of movement, and technological acceleration. The thing Aquarius does really well is to learn new technology as soon as it comes out. They’re the ones getting to know all the new programming languages. They understand how to take old-school industries and fit them into present day society. They’re out here updating all of us on the future.
However, in order to be an effective person and not just a laborer, Aquariuses need to learn how to be happy. These workaholics not only know how to get a job done but also how to work collaboratively, stay flexible, and find new efficient ways of doing things. But unless they are truly happy as they work, none of it will mean anything. Aquarius is that coworker who does such a good job and is always working until midnight, but you feel like they’re escaping something by leaning on work. Because Aquariuses tend to be industry leaders, their own happiness will affect the happiness of everyone working with them.
Pisces: Vision
The best thing that a Pisces brings to the table is the capacity to fail: to try again, fail again, and tell an incredible story about failure that makes them twice as strong. That’s the extraordinary quality of Pisces. In an economy where many of us are responsible for our own training, where an extremely expensive education is increasingly specialized towards industries that could become outdated in a few years, we all need to learn how to fail. If we went to college, all of us studied the wrong thing. And we all made mistakes on the job. So we all need to learn to step away from perfectionism and consider whether the skills we are developing now will matter in a couple years, and what our experience really means.
Of course, for all of their vision, the difficult thing for Pisces is to actually get something done on the day-to-day scale. They would do well to cut immersive screens out of their working hours, since they can get sucked into those very easily. They need someone else to set a routine for them, so that they can learn the skills needed to make their grand vision possible. A tip for Pisces: There are apps that charge you a couple of dollars for sleeping in. If you’re a freelancer, get one of those apps ASAP, and get out of bed in the mornings.
What Do You Think?