Dear Madame,

Please sort this out for me. I work with a woman in the sales department who’s riding a big-kahuna wave of popularity right now, selling the hell out of our stuff while I’m sitting here trying to figure out if we can make good on her promises to our customers. While everyone’s loving what she’s brought into the company, and I can appreciate the infusion of energy she’s given us, there are complications.

For one, we used to be lovers. For another, I’m still attracted to her — even more so since she’s really seemed to come into her own. I suppose I can be big enough to say I’m somewhat jealous of the attention she’s getting. While I’m the one who gets to ask all the ugly questions, like “how, exactly, are you going to get x to y in time?” she gets to be the sunshine up everyone’s shirt these days. And well, god help me, I wouldn’t mind some of that sunshine again.

Is it time to give this another go? Or do I just hang back here in the shadows minding my own boring business?

— Broody Moody Me

Dear Broody,

Well this is quite the inversion of the usual ‘workplace lovers’ scenario, but one I can imagine is becoming more familiar. At any rate, you can be assured that if your former darling’s in sales, there will always be the challenge of over-promising. Which may have leaked into her personal life — who knows? You didn’t offer that detail.

What comes through instead is a basic image of someone who’s not sure what to do with another person’s perceived success. Perception is everything. As you rightly implied, when we deal in perceptions, we may also deal in deceptions: it’s one thing to sell another on an idea or product, and it’s another to carry the sale through to completion.

So I cast a chart about this to see what’s actually happening. Indeed, your lady is at the top of her game. Venus sits on the MC or ‘high noon’ of my chart, telling me she’s the boss lady and at the peak of her prowess. There’s an assertive, nobody-fuck-with-me edge to her now, and the indication that she knows this is the last big push at the end of something — akin to the last big song and dance number at the end of a show.

Venus is at the last degrees of Leo, and this is the end of a super-long six-month season of people (and women in particular) rediscovering what truly makes their hearts go thump-thump. She’s giving it her all. And indeed, this is what’s made her attractive to you again.

You, on the other hand, look like a man besieged with paperwork, catching up on calls and returning emails long overdue, and working your way back to people with whom you want to connect. This lady? Well, yes.

The problem for both of you is that neither of you have any particular strength now. It’s as if you’re going through motions, paddling until you get to shore, neither here nor there. This suits the ‘weather’ astrology of the moment as well: we’re only two days from Mercury’s stationing direct and already he/she/it has come to an apparent crawl in the sky. Venus, too, will change signs in a day. So much is about to change. Do we push that button now?

Not yet. By the weekend, your Venus will be in new territory so you don’t need to push anything. What goes up must come back down. All her sales promises will require an accounting, and you will be the accountant.

No doubt she’ll have others she’ll need to answer to, as well. What you choose to do with that advantage is up to you, but I suggest shelving your jealousy and working toward a civilized dialog.

Right now this chart doesn’t strongly suggest a reunion, but it does suggest you can make progress, personally and professionally, if you take the walk back to this lady knowing she’s learned a few things about herself these past six months. And you sound as if you’ve learned something, too, about yourself. What is it, then?

You have professional standing; you have a little leverage. She’s got renewed self-worth. Take it one step at a time. Do what you’d do if you like someone: be curious about them, encourage them, keep sharing thoughts with them.

Almost everyone gets winning seasons once in awhile. As any underdog baseball team will tell you, sometimes it’s a long, long time between winning seasons. Why not buy your co-worker a beer and celebrate that winning season now?

Stepping out of her spotlight,

Madame Z