Let’s say your workplace is having a short gathering to welcome a new member of your workforce in. Will your new Scorpio coworker be there?

Usually, no. The Scorpio coworker likes to stay in their own corner and focus on what they are there to do. When it comes to getting to know coworkers, Scorpio prefers to observe someone for an extended period of time in a natural environment before exposing their own presence. A lot of the time, when you are very new to a workplace, the Scorpio coworker will be the person who you don’t notice until weeks later.

But you can rest assured. Whatever you’re up to, the Scorpio coworker is watching you.

Later on, perhaps even a year into the job, you learn that the Scorpio coworker has been at your workplace for something close to twenty years. In fact, they have the longest history in the workplace and they happen to be the only person who knows where the bodies, all of them, are buried.

Your Scorpio coworker doesn’t talk much. Even the chatty ones have a way of looking like they don’t have very much time to waste, like they’re thinking about more important things both inside and outside of their work. You learn to take their quiet presence in the corner of your workplace for granted. They’re just doing their thing, doing exactly what they are best at without ruffling any feathers.

But then, one day, your Scorpio coworker comes back from their lunch break. They hand you a fragrant sub sandwich. You look up surprised. “I noticed that you don’t take lunch,” they tell you as cool as the male lead in a K-drama. Just as you’re about to respond, they’re already back in their corner looking as though they are steadfastly ignoring everything happening around them.

Could it be? The Scorpio coworker is not watching you to watch you. No, they are watching out for you.

You offer to pay them back for the sandwich or to get them lunch the next day. They refuse. “Just pay it forward,” they remind you. You owe them nothing but the gentleness of a social safety contract that you didn’t know you were already signed up for.

Cool as a cucumber. Mysterious. Calming to work next to. Challenging but stable.

You start to notice some details about your workplace: that your Scorpio coworker is the one who goes out of their way to include everyone, that they ask the right questions at the right time, that they quietly pick up the slack for those who need help without making much of a fuss, and that your industry is full of really smart young people who your Scorpio coworker mentored at some point in their life. Just when you’re too stressed to function one winter week, your Scorpio coworker messages you. “I noticed you have a lot on your plate. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

Is this some kind of flirtation? No, it’s not. Your Scorpio coworker is probably married or in some monogamous long term commitment as a lot of Scorpios tend to be. The Scorpio coworker is just showing you the simple care that they show to anyone who is on their team. If you work on the same projects and draw from the same income/food bowl, then you’re one of Scorpio’s teammates.

Yes, it’s nice to be on a Scorpio’s team, isn’t it? When a Scorpio counts you in as one of their people, you are taken care of quite nicely.

Is the Scorpio coworker the dream coworker? Only sometimes. Let’s be wary of idealizing people here. Those who work outside of a Scorpio’s team don’t get the same deluxe experience. Not by far.

The Scorpio coworker is not trying to be friendly with people on the other team. How they define the “other team” depends on the Scorpio and on the work environment at hand. Sometimes, the other team is management because management is detached from the workers and fully representing the owners. Sometimes, the other team is another division who just happens to misunderstand what you do which gets quite annoying now and then. Sometimes, the Scorpio coworker sees another organization as the other team, the competitor who always seems to be copying your team but never giving credit where credit is due.

The Scorpio coworker is never an antagonistic coworker unless the other team truly does something wack. More likely than now, they just don’t make themselves known to outsiders. People outside of your team don’t know they exist. However, outsiders will have a hard time explaining how your team is so loyal and devoted to one another. They don’t realize that you have a Scorpio melding the team together.

And if the “other team” does maliciously sabotage your team? Oh, you don’t want to see that happen. Remember—Scorpio has hidden allies and knows things that other people simply do not.

When it comes to work functions outside of the workplace, Scorpio is not coming. The Scorpio coworker is not coming to your Halloween party or the company mixer. In fact, they don’t want to see any of their coworkers outside of work. If they see you on the street or run into you at the store, then they will be sure to avoid your glance, pull their hood up, and walk away quickly in the opposite direction.

Whiplash? No. You just experienced what it’s like to witness your Scorpio coworker when you are outside of their team.

You see, the Scorpio coworker is on your team at work but they are on another team at home. Please, don’t bother the Scorpio coworker at home. They feel obligated to help you out when you ask even if that means breaking the promise that they made to their roommates about helping out at dinner and that’s simply too emotionally confusing for them to handle. They also don’t want to think about you at home, not when they just spend eight hours of their day closely observing your every small action. Even if you did not interact with them or notice them that day, they are quite aware of you and also a little bit sick of you by the time the workday ends.