Unimportant, of course, I meant, the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, Important-unimportant-unimportant
important- as if he were trying which word sounded best,
If you’re a man, you probably think your Libra boss if one heck of a regular guy, fair and square, always on the level. If you’re a woman, you may be a little bit in love with him, whether you realize it or not. Venus vibrations are powerful.
The Libra executive is normally one half of a partnership since his unconscious desire is always to bring two things or two people together. Emotionally, the urge is consummated through an early marriage or a shockingly early love affair. In business, he satisfies his balancing function by combining his charm and intellect with a partner who complements his own personality, and supplies whatever talents and abilities he lacks. (He won’t lack many.)
He may not sit behind a desk as often as other bosses. That’s because he likes to sit on the fence. It’s not that he finds it more comfortable. It can be quite painful. Notice his unhappy expression while he’s seated there. It’s a struggle, as he takes two opposing ideas and weighs them, back and forth. Once he’s achieved a fair and impartial decision, he’ll be back at his desk, happily swirling in his contour chair again. But while he’s on the fence he can be mighty hard to fathom.
The Libra boss is extremely restless and full of outgoing activity, yet he never seems to be in a hurry, a contradiction few people can manage. It’s like watching a skillful Juggler. With all that restless activity, you expect him to drop his poise and break into a nervous run at any moment, Just as you expect the juggler to drop one of the balls he’s tossing. But neither does. Born with a natural affinity for the element of air, the Libran accomplishes even frenzied action with so much easy grace, he almost seems to be standing still. It’s like a movie in slow motion. The activity never stops, but the projector is set at a peculiar speed.
In spite of his often shy, gentle manner, this man is not an island. There’s always a need to express himself in some way, to communicate with others. Though most of his communicating is done through speech, he can also tell you whole volumes with his smile. He’s sure to be intelligent, but if Mercury was afflicted by adverse aspects at his birth, he may still be trying to convince himself that he is. Many Libran bosses are persuasive talkers and great debaters who can sway a whole roomful of people effortlessly. Even the shy Libran executive who seldom tries to grab attention can argue logically and convincingly, although this type will probably plan everything in his mind before he speaks. That’s why he’s so quiet for such long periods. He’s deciding what he wants to say. Ifs usually safer to take his statements straight after he’s passed through one of his silent moods. He’s less likely to change his mind. If he’s rushed into making a decision, hell mull it over afterwards, realize his first thoughts were hasty and do a complete turnabout.
You may find him seeking your opinion frequently. Before you decide he thinks you’ve a brilliant brain, remember that there are several motives for his flattering interest in your ideas. First of all, he wants to be fair. He doesn’t want to make either an unjust or unpopular decision. Another reason he feels compelled to gather up all the pros and cons of an issue is because, without access to all the available facts, he feels incapable of making a wise assessment.
The typical Libra boss who’s trying to make up his mind whether to say yes or no to an important deal will take a democratic poll of his wife, the elevator man, his secretary, the cleaning woman and his public relations man, and it can have some pretty weird results. It’s difficult for a tired cleaning woman to give a logical opinion on how the proposed split might affect the shareholders of the non-voting stock. She may need some time to ponder it. (She can’t think straight when her feet hurt.)
The elevator man may have a little trouble grasping the costs involved in a projected merger of two large corporations. For one thing, $40,000 for attorneys’ fees may seem extravagant to him. He paid his lawyer forty dollars one time for legal advice, and he felt like a spendthrift.
That vice-president who continues to draw his salary while he’s in the hospital with a nervous breakdown will really throw the Libran’s secretary. After all, she’s been on the verge of a mental crack-up for several years, and nobody ever coddled her like that.
The cleaning woman finally makes up her mind. Forget the stock split; she’s never trusted that word. It was when her old man split out that she bad to start mopping floors to support the seven kids.
The Libran’s wife says, Do what you think best, dear, but she makes it clear she privately thinks he should take a negative stand because she doesn’t like the wife of one of the major stockholders.
The public relations man never changes his opinion; Damn the torpedos-full speed ahead!-is his advice on all problems. Finally, the consensus is complete. Armed with this expert analysis, the Libra boss
will still manage to arrive at a more logical, sensible final decision than nine out of ten men would make. It’s amazing, but he does it somehow.
There could be still another reason he seeks so many viewpoints when he’s making up his mind. He may be one of those rare Librans who maneuvers to shift the blame for a possible mistake to someone else’s shoulders. When things fall through, he can always shrug and say, Well, it wasn’t my idea to back away. The cleaning woman thought it was a bad move.
However, a Libra boss who’s managed to achieve harmony and unity of his mind and emotions can be a regular well of wisdom. For all I know, you may work for one. There are lots of them around, and they’re nice bosses to know when you have a problem. They can come up with an answer that no one else could have thought of, taking everything into consideration and giving you an out that’s both fair and smart.
The chances are that the walls of your Libra boss’s office are not bare-although the picture of the girl on his calendar may be. The walls will normally be covered with pictures, trophies, and good prints, hung in balanced positions, and the filing cabinets will be dusted. You can bet that there’s a radio or record player somewhere around so he can tune in to melodious sounds when things get too discordant and his nerves get dangerously jingle-jangled from the confusion of daily routine. The colors in his office will seldom be wild. No exotic lime green or brilliant tangerine that hurt his eyes. However, there may be just a touch of the oriental motif. Some Librans seem to lean slightly in that direction. Perhaps it’s because of the legendary quiet, gentle manner of living in the far east or the peaceful harmony of Eastern philosophy. He may not go so far as to have flowers on his desk, but if your Libraa boss is a Woman, she probably will.
There are more Woman bosses born under Libra than any Other sign, though Aries, Capricorn, Leo and Cancer run a close second. Assuming that he is a she, your Libra boss will almost surely have a big potted plant in the office, plus a large mirror. Music will be around her somewhere, too. She may not procrastinate quite as much as the men of the sign; since it’s more difficult for a woman to achieve a level of command, she had to control her indecision or she wouldn’t have made it to the top of the totem pole. Like her masculine counterpart, the Libran Woman boss will try to be fair. She’ll listen to office squabbles and be able to see both sides with equal clarity. You may catch her hiding behind her door, weighing her golden scales, when the decision is important, but there’s one area where she won’t take long to make up her mind. Love. She’s either already decided marriage is not for her, or she’s constantly a little dreamy-eyed from a recent romance. It’s a rare Libran Woman, executive or not, who can live without a valentine in her life. Though she’s an expert at hiding her after-five activities, I can assure you she’s not playing a solitary game of Chinese checkers every night. She may curl up with a good book on a rainy Monday, but most weekends will find her doing the town in a romantic haze. The haze, however, will be temporary. Her mind is too sharply logical to let sentiment completely blind her. Few Librans of either sex let the heart rule the head. Their heads are too hard and too bright to submit to the soft rays of Venus without a fight, another of Libra’s strange inconsistencies.
This lady boss will probably be undeniably pretty or beautiful. If she’s neither, you’ll think she is when that Venus smile flits over her plain features. Her charming social graces may fool the customers and clients, but if you’ve worked for her any length of time, you’ll be aware that her graceful sweetness covers a mind which doesn’t miss a trick or a treatment.
She’ll have her cross days, and she will probably contradict herself enough to leave you up in the air now and then. In the discipline area she’s somewhat harsher than the man Libran. If you make a mistake, she’ll know it instinctively, and you’ll get a strong message that she doesn’t want to see it multiply into daily errors. Her voice will be soft, or slightly husky, well-modulated and perhaps a little drawling, and she’ll seldom raise it. (With an Aries, Gemini or Sagittarius ascendant, the air might get a little blue when she sees red.)
The lady Libra boss often looks as if she should be on the list of the Ten Best Dressed Women, and maybe she actually is. Woman employees chew their nails with envy at her wardrobe, furs, jewels and perfumes. The men employees react as you might expect. Every last one of them. Except for the lions, scorpios, bulls, goats and rams, who feel that working for a woman is like serving time at Leavenworth. The rest will succumb to her dimpled charm with nary a struggle.
When you’re tempted to treat her like one of the girls, don’t get too chummy. Her friendly attitude may seem to encourage confidences, but she won’t tolerate powder room gossip, and she’ll stamp out any signs of it at the water cooler. She didn’t get where she is by having a loose tongue. Librans of both sexes treat a confidence as a sacred trust. Some of them may talk a lot, and they all adore to argue, but they’re not gossips. There’s a difference. Both the man and Woman Libra bosses lean toward long, pleasant lunch hours. If they don’t take them, you should see that they do, because they won’t be their usual liberal selves when they’re hungry or tired. All Venus executives would be better off if they faced up to their need for periodic rest and snoozed for an hour or so each day. You might get the employees to chip in to buy an attractive sofa for his office, if you want to keep your Libra boss balanced. He’s a cat napper, but he may feel guilty about it. The day he comes to work wearing a blue expression and sporting red eyes, with droopy, gray bags under them, is a day you’ll want to avoid him.
Unless he has a strongly independent ascendant hell probably believe in unions. Anything fair is okay with him. His sense of justice makes him a natural in mediating disputes. The Libran viewpoint on money is seldom neutral. He’ll either be the stingiest boss in town or the most generous. Sometimes, he may take turns: be a tightwad in December and a Santa Claus in July. There will always be a definite attitude at any given moment. He tips either a nickel or a five spot.
Sooner or later, you’ll be invited to his home. Almost every Libran executive eventually wants to entertain his employees under his own roof, and he’ll be an impeccably gracious host.
He’s probably the soul of gallantry in front of women, and at the same time a man’s man. The sure way to earn his disfavor is to be loud, vulgar and opinionated. Remember that harmony is his middle name. Create it when you can-never destroy it or disrupt it-and he’ll want you around without knowing exactly why.
His occasional indecisiveness may annoy you; he may procrastinate and his dreams may need a little push now and then. Still, there’s that smile, the respect you have for his quiet intelligence, and his willingness to meet you halfway. He doesn’t want you to top him, yet he won’t expect you to be his slave. He’s neither a pusher nor a nagger, and he’ll never betray your trust. When you add it all up, the scales balance in his favor. His is a blending nature. Your Libra boss really needs your cooperation to be a complete person himself, and a man who needs you can get a firm grip on your loyalty, if not on your heart. Haven’t you felt the tug?