Corporate Tarot: The Complete Major Arcana

There's a lot of uncertainty about the future of white-collar work right now. Elon Musk has called AI a "supersonic tsunami" set to dominate every computer-based job like lightning. Sam Altman has warned it could cost us our privacy, our agency, our freedom. Bold claims from the guys profiting the most from humanity's newest superpower. But what's to be done for those of us who wish to make our own speculative predictions?

The obvious answer is to chart the stars from where we sit, drenched in the eerie blue glow of our monitors. After you badge in, open your laptop, and pencil in an hour or two for the existential dread to settle along with your morning half-caf mocha, you might be ready to read your fortune, blasted to you straight from the cosmos to your computer screen, courtesy of straycurrents.com.

What's next for your corporate life? We'll tell you. Move over, Rider-Waite-Smith. This is the Corporate Tarot.

Consult with Steve, the Corporate Oracle here: straycurrents.com/corporate-oracle/

0. The Intern 🐣

She's cheery and bright, full of newly acquired knowledge, and ready to make her first foray into the wild world of corporate.  It's her junior year of undergrad.  She carries a twinkle of optimism in her eyes, walks with pep in her step, and she's got a mountain of debt waiting to come due that she does her best not to think about.  She isn't ensnared in any office politics or burdened with the unspoken rules of the office social codes. Perhaps it's for this reason more than her “go-getter” energy that she is beloved by all: she's not a threat. Yet.

Upright: a fresh start, beginner's luck, fearlessness born of ignorance, the world is your oyster.

Reversed: nepotism, debt, grad school, a dead-end.  AI is the only intern we need now.

I. The Founder 🏆

He was once armed with a prospectus, a dream, and someone else's money.  Now he mostly just holds onto things, like his yellowing rolodex, what's left of his hairline, and a wall of glass awards you once mistook for a paperweight collection.  But back in the day!  Oh, you should have seen him then.  The founder had the ego and chutzpah to build a small consulting firm into a real, honest to God all-American, bona fide company.  His idea from 1983 is still humming along.  For now.  If it all goes belly up, he's got oodles of cash.  And if things get really bad, he could always sell the client data.

Upright: vision, manifestation, force of will, unbridled hubris.  Opportunity born from the “right place, right time.” Achievement via legacy.

Reversed: smoke and mirrors, divorce, self-aggrandizing LinkedIn posts ghostwritten by Claude that use the word “throughline” too much.

II. The Water Cooler ☕

What is this, the '90s?  It's a Keurig.  The machine stands in the break room, a respite, an oasis, surrounded by a mysterious and unflinching puddle of water.  It is the veil between the official story and the true one, dispensing shitty coffee and an endless amount of landfill-bound plastic in exchange for gossip, news, and information.

Upright: the intel before the announcement.  News, vigilance, spying, and hearsay.  Also: acid reflux, bad breath, and serious heartburn.

Reversed: deadly rumors, passive-aggressive backstabbing, misinformation.  Also: that one off-brand K-cup, artificially flavored to the point you wonder if the creators ever tasted the real thing.  It's probably hazelnut.

III. The Admin 🐄

She's the den mother of your team.  She's the iron-fisted ruler of calendars, wielder of birthday and work anniversary reminders.  She's the keeper of the good conference room.  She also possesses the key to getting you a one-on-one with your boss's boss.  If you double-cross her, you can kiss your ass goodbye.

Upright: a golden halo of protection, access, provision.  Additional divinatory meanings suggest that the querent may be building too much of his/her identity around worthless desk tchotchkes with a vague theme, usually animal in nature.  In particular: cows, pigs, or roosters.

Reversed: a lack of upper-management access, a downgraded cubicle assignment far from any windows, a “Secret Santa” that doesn't even know you; in some cases: a slow, steady slide toward termination.

IV. The Satellite 🛰️

He's a high-ranking leader with an even higher profile, an unlimited budget, and no internal filter.  You know him from the all-team calls, where he yammers well past his allotted time about a strategy he clearly doesn't understand, oblivious to a polite and captive audience.  In short, he's an idiot.  Will he ever be exposed as the fraud he is?  Not bloody likely!  His social capital in the C-suite is unparalleled, and social capital has never once required competence, just a lunch meeting.  When he ruins whatever team he's "leading," there are no consequences, only a lateral move.  Like clockwork, he's reassigned to a fresh corner of the org every eleven months, handed a new team that doesn't know him yet, a clean slate he'll ruin on schedule.  He'll never touch grass again.  This man stays in orbit forever.

Upright: untouchable, a buffoon, charming mostly on account of his stupidity.  The next high-profile seat is a single phone call away.

Reversed: you report to him now, and you inherit the space junk he floats above.

V. The Category Manager 📊

She's a third party agent.  She holds the sacred scrolls known as the "vendor list" and the approved-supplier doctrine.  You cannot help but notice that she's more intelligent than most of your internal team, and has access to sophisticated data analytics tools one would think your own Fortune 500 would have bought years ago.  Every few years the company decides the Cat-Mans are redundant and moves to cut them loose.  But the Category Manager is a survivor.  Your company has never figured out how to recreate her job in house.  Maybe AI will be the final fatal blow?  Doubtful.  She popped up on your Hinge feed once but you opted against sending a rose.  Because that would be weird.  Right?

Upright: intelligence, data, orthodoxy, playing by the rules.  The patience to carry lazy buyers.

Reversed: un-dimensioned product vectors, death by committee, and new products no one wants, like Pop-Tart flavored beef jerky.

VI. The Work Spouse 💍

They're married.  To other people.  In real life.  No matter, this relationship is the work spouse.  They have lunch together, help each other out with PowerPoint decks, and are frequently gossiping at each other's desks throughout the day, peppered with so many inside jokes that it's as if they're speaking in foreign tongues.  Their giggles and snickers punctuate the sleepy, post-lunch atmosphere to the annoyance of everyone around them.  There's speculation as to whether or not they're, you know, having an actual affair.  They know that the rest of their team hates them just a little bit, which only makes the bond stronger.  At least they're fodder for the break room.

Upright: connection, alliances, chemistry, emotional cheating.  Additionally: laughter, soulmates, and private Slack channels.

Reversed: public spectacle, nuisance, affairs, divorce.  Doom and heartbreak are almost certain if The Re-Org card is revealed anywhere in the querent's spread.

VII. The Chief of Staff 😓

She got the job a decade ago, fresh off an online MBA and a flawless reputation as a strategic leader, the kind of operator who could hold two contradictory priorities in each hand and drive them forward with sharp intelligence and polished swagger.  She thought the CoS gig was a short ride to VP.  That was eight years ago.  Since then the reins have been taken from her one at a time: senior level re-shuffling redrew her mandates, opaque ownership and responsibilities erased her early wins.  A series of micro-managing bosses effectively undid her work or simply sopped up the credit.  The role demands she grin and bear it.  So she shifted her strategy: survival.  Busywork and endless deck-building aid her in the illusion of progress.  Her husband is having a midlife crisis, "finding himself" part-time behind the wheel of an Uber and as the bass guitar player in a Styx cover band.  She has three kids.  She is the breadwinner.  She still holds the cart together by force of will, because the only other option is watching everything split in two.

Upright: internal conflict, heavy burdens, control maintained at ruinous expense, ambition that fossilized years ago into stone.

Reversed: the same.  The meaning of the card does not waver.

VIII. Sally from Accounting 🥷 

Everybody knows Sally.  She's been in the same role in the same company for so long, her employee badge number carries two fewer digits than everyone else's.  She knows the weird path to find that one file everybody still uses that, for some reason, never migrated out of the S: drive.  Sally's the only one who can fix the Excel file with the monstrous macro running behind it (she didn't create it but she's still friends with the guy who did, long since retired).  She accrues vacation time at such staggering rates that she hasn't had to work a Friday in over a decade, which no one begrudges because she does her job and two more like a ninja.  Her anecdotes about the company paint a picture so different than the one before you that you wonder if she's pulling your leg.  Once she mentioned her pension, something previously believed to be the stuff of legend.

Upright: quiet mastery, earned wisdom, practical and pragmatic experience.  Also: stealth wealth despite an entry-level title.

Reversed: a routine teeth cleaning that leads to an additional day off that week.  Constantly talking on mute during Zoom calls.

IX. The Out of Office 🏝️

You're 98% done with a project that you've been relentlessly driving for eighteen months.  It was a bear.  You've had nightmares about it.  It's caused numerous conflicts with your spouse.  Finally, the end is clearly in sight, which is great because your boss has been breathing down your neck about it for weeks.  All that's left is for Rick from legal to sign off.  The only problem: he's got an auto-reply set up for a ten-day vacation in the Poconos.  Didn't Rick just get back from a trip to Yellowstone?  What's his fucking deal?

Upright: delays outside your control; unanticipated roadblocks; rage at inertia.

Reversed: you're the Rick.  Someone desperately needs you to complete a task.  Forget about it: you're on vacation!  Who are we kidding?  We both know you'll check your email every hour on the hour and respond diligently.  Your wife reminds you this is exactly what the therapist was talking about in couples' counseling.

X. The Boomerang 🪃

She was in upper-middle management and had a vague job title and an even hazier set of core responsibilities and deliverables.  Her job seemed to pertain to coordination and collaboration with an equally mundane roster of cross-functional teams across the org.  Charles from operations once described her personality akin to “flat, room temperature 7Up.” He was right on the money.  Out of nowhere, she got a sweetheart job offer and took it to a lot of pomp and circumstance.  Her obligatory “bittersweet, so blessed” LinkedIn announcement got an impressive amount of likes and hearts.  Yadda yadda.  Everyone forgot about her seconds after she turned in her laptop and badge, only to see another LinkedIn update a mere eighteen months later: she's coming back!  And it's a promotion!  “Feels so good to be coming home.” More likes.  More hearts.  What happened there, exactly?

Upright: mediocrity, undeserved attention, success through excessive blandness.

Reversed: boomerangs don't always come back.

XI. The Open Door Policy 🚪

The company really wants you to understand that they have a strict open door policy.  To make sure you know this, you must take a quiz about the open door policy every ninety days.  It's one of those video modules that doesn't allow you to skip any content even though you'd have to be braindead to fail the questionnaire at the end.  If you don't comply with the training, HR or your boss will chew you out.  Really, it's for your own good.  If you have an issue — any issue — you should absolutely feel comfortable bringing it to HR.  So you do.  HR listens and nods.  HR has a way of rephrasing everything you say back to you so that it makes you feel like a moron for bringing it up.  "What I'm hearing is that you feel that you got a poor annual performance review, and that,” she pauses, checking her notes, “your contributions weren't appropriately ‘recognized.’ Do you mean beyond the twenty-five-cent raise you received?  Because I have to say, just between us: that's what most people got.  If they were lucky." While it's not said outright, any conversation you have with HR is replayed straight to your boss's boss, and to a meeting the company calls "mediation," where you will sit across from HR and your boss and slowly come to understand that you are a problem with a paper trail.

Upright: shooting yourself in the foot.  A mistake instantly revealed.

Reversed: talk masquerading as progress.  A problem neither party is capable of solving.

XII. The LOA 🩼

He initially took two weeks off to help his ailing mother in Florida.  No biggie.  Then his wife had the baby.  There were some complications, so he went on an extended paternity LOA.  You've been covering for him for over four months, but you're truly glad to hear that everyone is happy, healthy, and doing well.  Then, the Sunday before his return, he gets into a fender-bender (not his fault).  It's going to be at least another four months of physical therapy and bedrest.  Since the time he's been gone, the org has been restructured.  Because the team can't wait for him and doesn't want any legal blowback, you learn that he's been promoted to the job you couldn't even get an interview for.  The guy that hasn't worked in over half a year sailed to victory without doing jack shit.  This is America, baby.

Upright: a cornucopia of misfortunes that lead to sudden, undeserved success.

Reversed: someone else's job just got added to your inbox.  Indefinitely.

XIII. The Layoff 👻

Nothing short of murdering a co-worker would lead to an explicit termination.  Your company would never fire an employee head-on.  Instead, its move is to "eliminate the role." This is the corporate version of "it's not you, it's me." They don't have to get their hands dirty, and you didn't do anything wrong.  Months before it happens, you notice every team in your silo was reorganized except yours.  You catch a whiff of the layoff coming like the faint smell of an electrical fire before it ignites: your calendar invites dry up, you're asked to document everything you're currently working on, and it's vaguely suggested that you "consider a new role in the company," despite the fact that there aren't any new roles (“role eliminations” are happening everywhere).  You get a few half-hearted "best wishes" notes from a couple of co-workers, but for the most part they avoid you like dog shit left steaming on a sidewalk: they don't want your layoff stink rubbing off on them.  You're completely alone.  A ghost.

Upright: new beginnings, transformation, unemployment benefits, and daytime TV.

Reversed: endings with delayed transitions.  Everything in slow-motion.  Too much alcohol.

XIV. Work-Life Balance ⚖️

“Work-life” balance is the corporate version of those “Live, Laugh, Love” posters.  Your company is always talking about the ever-elusive work-life balance: how important it is, how they really admire millionaire celebrities that claim to have it (was anyone really concerned that Matthew McConaughey once felt that he didn't have it, or relieved when he later achieved it?).  No one knows what work-life balance is or how you get it.  Your company's leaders have leaned into the ambiguity, stating matter-of-factly that “it's a little different for everyone!” If that's true, you reason, there's no way to hold yourself or anyone else accountable to realizing it.

Upright: you do your job, go home, have a cocktail, watch Netflix, and go to bed, knowing you'll do it all over again tomorrow.

Reversed: the same as Upright, but with significantly more existential dread.

XV. Copilot 📎

Your company is thrilled to announce they're finally getting on the AI bandwagon.  Yes, that's right.  AI is here to help you with your job!  There are some groans and eye rolls.  A few folks on your team murmur that AI will soon enslave the entire human race.  But not you.  You're genuinely excited.  You dream of writing code and building agents with Claude, or creating stunning graphics with ChatGPT.  But no, your company's security policies have pointed to a clear winner.  Yes, you guessed it.  Microsoft, the company that brought you Clippy, the sniveling, groveling, intrusive paperclip in Office '97, has done it again with Copilot: the only AI tool that absolutely nobody likes.  Its best feature seems to be the ability to mask your contempt for your coworkers by rewriting your “per my last email” to “just a friendly reminder.” Pathetic.

Upright: a new waste of time, a distraction.  Clunky solutions in search of a problem.

Reversed: like a consistent yet ambiguous “meal smell” in the break room, you get used to Copilot.  You can't even remember the last time you wrote an email without it.  It might even be starting to make you .  .  .  .  you know.  What's that word?  Oh.  Dumber.

XVI. The Re-Org 🌪️

A slap in the face. Severe and unexpected, your company initiates a Re-Org seemingly just because it can, throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.  Senior management has been working on this for months, offering canned enthusiasm for the chaos.  Reporting lines you thought were immovable mountains become sandcastles at high tide overnight.  Whole teams dissolve mid-sentence.  It's Splitsville, USA for the Work Spouses.  Oh, sure, they'll get together for lunch now and again, but they both know their work marriages are over.  Whether anyone can actually assess if the company is better off after its restructuring is moot.  The Re-Org's true power lies in clouding outcomes with the frenetic energy known as the illusion of progress.

Upright: sudden upheaval, inevitable collapse, revelations extracted by demolition.

Reversed: the same, except in slow motion and dragged on for the better part of a year.

XVII. Company Benefits 🎁

A mixed bag after a mixed year.  Modestly decent health and dental plans stand next to 5% off flights to Orlando.  This year's all-team included free copies of Brené Brown's new book; you feel empathy for her as you heave it into the trash.  Maybe next year they'll give you a raise instead of the same content she's been peddling for over a decade.  There's a slew of gym discounts, but none of them are near your apartment.  The company match is nothing remarkable, but what are you going to do — find another job?  In this economy?

Upright: your health plan covers therapy.  Thank god.  The one benefit that'll be put to work.

Reversed: you used the company link to buy an Apple computer at a 3% discount, and later realized it was a worse deal than going to Best Buy.

XVIII. Q4 🎲

The focal point around which the whole year revolves.  Win the season and everyone gets a nice annual bonus.  Biff it and your whole team might get downsized.  Much of this is beyond your control, so in the end it's mostly a crapshoot, though management pretends otherwise.  For three months the answer to every question is "we'll have more clarity next quarter." The company pulled its controversial "see-through yoga pants" collection, costing $67 million in lost revenue, and backed out of a store expansion into Canada faster than an avocado goes from ripe to spoiled.  But those stupid $11 TikTok dot cakes are doing well, I guess.  Nobody saw that coming except a handful of tweenage girls.

Upright: endless all-teams, insanity by PowerPoint, a modest bonus that amounts to a soft kiss after Uncle Sam takes his 40% cut; a 2% raise.

Reversed: unwavering effort, all for naught.  Try again next year, when the fog rolls back in and the number resets to zero.

XIX. The Offsite 🍹

Your boss has been stingy with the budget all year.  People have started calling her "Ebenezer" behind her back.  Hell, she wouldn't even spring for Martha's retirement party, and Martha was a sweet old lady.  Little did anyone know "Ebenezer" had secretly been hoarding all the cash for an epic summer Offsite.  The first hour is a half-assed Post-It “start/stop/continue” exercise.  Once the empty gesture of work has been adequately performed, it's time to board her husband's second cousin's party pontoon, dubbed "Ship-Faced." Gayle brought Jell-O shots.  Tom from Pricing has a case of Pacificos.  Sherry from Ops has a bottle of tequila.  Amanda from Compliance is blasting all the hits from 1983–'87.  Everyone keeps repeating that what happens on Ship-Faced stays on Ship-Faced.  Well after the sunburns fade, the Offsite will be remembered for years to come, even if its legends are fogged by the high-proof liquor and memory's murk in the embers of passing time.

Upright: joy, alignment, a boost of morale.  The belief that, if only for a moment, you're right where you should be.

Reversed: mandatory fun.  Everyone is having the time of their lives and you can't figure out how to join them, sober and counting the minutes until you're docked.  Party pooper.

XX. The Promotion 🪜

You've been busting your hump and carrying your boss and his workload around like an even less funny version of Weekend at Bernie's.  Your most important relationship is with your phone, responding to work emails well past the witching hour, only to start all over again at 6:00 a.m.  But it was all worth it: you've proven you're ready for that big promotion, and it's yours!  You earned this.  And you want it.  It's finally yours.  You want it.  Right?

Upright: recognition, new titles, negotiations in your favor, the call to new adventures.  Some scholars believe it also indicates longer hours, reduced happiness, and increased nostalgia for the days you flipped burgers for minimum wage.

Reversed: you realize that with the increase in hours you're putting in, the promotion actually reduced your hourly rate.  Turns out more work was the whole deal.  Congratufuckinglations.

XXI. The Two Weeks' Notice 👋

It's been on your mind and gaining steam for at least four months: this job is unbearable.  The sleepless nights, the pointless meetings, and a boss about as trustworthy as a pit of rattlesnakes.  You fantasize about all the ways you'd tell them off and exactly where they can stick their PowerPoint edits.  Of course, when the time comes, you'll say none of these things.  No reason to burn bridges.  You know, just in case it doesn't work out.  For now, your boss doesn't deserve another moment's thought.  You've got bigger fish to fry.  It's time to blow this pop stand.  Sayonara!  So what if you don't have another job lined up?  The job market can't be as bad as they say.  You're a seasoned professional with fifteen years of experience and a bounty of contacts on LinkedIn.  Six months of savings ought to cover you, right?  AI can't take all the jobs.  It's time to realize your full potential.  Good luck, soldier.

Upright: a decent night's sleep; inner peace.  The thrill of the unknown.  Mild doubts that creep up as the days tick by without a new job offer.  Why did you do something so rash?

Reversed: immediate regrets.  You wonder if George Costanza was onto something when he returned to work after quitting and pretended the whole thing was a joke.