1. Aries - Pitches seemingly insane ideas with zero hesitation
- Confident to the point of being borderline arrogant
- Passionate about everything – which often results in a willingness to pick fights over even a difference in opinion
Think: The young social entrepreneur who moved to the sector one month ago, and thinks they can solve the water crisis.
2. Taurus
- Operates on two speeds only – leisurely planning with multiple breaks, or beast-mode the day before a deadline
- Has the best snack drawer
- Not resistant to change, just doesn’t see the point of it
Think: Your head of finance, functioning regularly versus one day before the auditors arrive.
Related article: So much ‘work’, so little time
3. Gemini
- Offers interesting but completely unrelated facts during a conversation
- A ball of nervous energy 80 percent of the time
- Most active in the office WhatsApp group, and knows all the gossip
Think: Your admin manager at any given point of time.
4. Cancer
- Takes criticism personally, and keeps a list of people who have wronged them
- Normalises crying in the workspace
- Cares about office culture and gives the best Secret Santa presents
Think: Your colleague who doubles-up as the in-house office therapist.
5. Leo
- Loudest person in the office, probably a show-off
- Has a power stance for every presentation
- The most fun person at happy hour
Think: The millennial leaving your office to get their Harvard MBA.
Image courtesy: Raw Pixel
6. Virgo
- Meticulous workaholic who’s a perfectionist to a fault
- Gives the best advice that they aren’t able to take themselves
- Low threshold for stupidity
Think: Your M&E manager who would rather work till midnight than trust anyone in the team to do something.
7. Libra
- Self-appointed arbitrator for any and all disagreements
- A networking badass with all the contacts
- Will change their opinions based on who they’re talking to, to appease everyone involved
Think: Your star fundraiser and in-house resource for information on everyone in the sector.
Related article: 7 of your nonprofit colleagues we met on Tinder
8. Scorpio
- Has a no-nonsense work ethic and gets sh*t done quietly and efficiently
- Mysterious and impenetrable, and won’t offer up personal details easily
- An innate talent for persuasion, and would probably be sorted into Slytherin
Think: Usually the founder-CEO, keeping the organisation steady since Day 1.
9. Sagittarius
- Limitless reserves of energy
- First language is sarcasm, but can be kind of tactless
- Already planning the next trip everyone in the office should take together
Think: Your new sub-25 hire who is a philosophy major and has a travel blog.
10. Capricorn
- Do not know how to delegate and would rather just do everything themselves
- Has googled ‘how to get my boss’s job’
- Crippling self-doubt masked by dark humour
Think: The entrepreneur whose startup idea didn’t pick up and was forced to accept a junior position at your organisation.
Related article: A day in the life of a nonprofit CEO
11. Aquarius
- Looks at the big picture but misses the practical details
- Over-thinks and analyses every meeting and interaction
- Genuinely believes that it’s not a God complex, because they really are that smart
Think: The McKinsey consultant you hired for a strategy exercise.
12. Pisces
- Spends 60 percent of the workday staring out the window
- Will switch off their phone/ignore their emails half-way through the day because reality is too much to deal with right now
- Does not know what a deadline is
Think: That one person in your office who really should have stayed in their PhD programme instead of taking a break to get ‘real world experience’.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Nadia Nooreyezdan is a freelance writer with a masters from Columbia Journalism School. Her articles cover issues at the intersection of gender and politics. She is invested in feminist theory, pop culture, and queering everything.
