The Career palace: old "office," present-day work

Office and emolument make one palace

The Career palace is the ninth of the twelve. "Office" in its name is an official post and "emolument" is the salary, and together they stand for the part of life where a person does a job, bears responsibility and is paid.

Open the full-size diagram

Life, Wealth and Career sit four places apart and close one trine (purple and green); the brown cell straight across from Career is Partner.

Career is no. 9 on the ring. Across the circle, six places off, stands the Partner palace (no. 3); Life (no. 1) and Wealth (no. 5) lie four steps away on either hand and form its trine. Add the palace itself and the four palaces are read as one set, the "three sides and four directions."

Life, Wealth and Career: one trine

Counting from Life, no. 1 is Life, no. 5 is Wealth and no. 9 is Career. Each is four places from the next, and the three close into a ring:

So looking out from Career, the trine positions hold Life and Wealth: the self (Life), resources (Wealth) and duties (Career) naturally sit together. The opposite palace is Partner, which means the topic of partnership stands across from Career; that is how the positions fall, and how it is used depends on the method. Which palaces a work question should involve is covered in which palaces a career question needs.

The book's "office": power and military posts

The "Career" section of juan 2 gives 23 stars one entry each and closes with one on the Dou Jun (斗君). Each star entry first states how the star sits in the Career palace and then what happens when Wen Chang (文昌), Wen Qu (文曲), Qing Yang (擎羊), Tuo Luo (陀罗) and the like join it. Here are the counts of several office words:

Reading down the column, most of the book's "offices" are military posts and clerkships, and "civil post" turns up only once. That is the old civil service as it appears in the book: the Career palace is written as "what standing you hold in the government." No such ranks exist today, so a phrase like "a rising military post" cannot be carried over as an occupation. It has to be translated into duties and roles: who holds power, who carries out, who answers for it.

Five short verses, five kinds of official

After the Career entries, juan 2 appends five four-line verses, one for each type of official:

The verse for the civil officer is the one closest to the Career palace itself:

A civil officer, Chang and Qu hang from his court dress; within the Career palace they are welcome.

The star groups differ from verse to verse: ministers turn on Fu Bi (辅弼, the two aides) and the throne star, the two offices on Chang and Qu (short for Wen Chang and Wen Qu), the civil officer on Chang and Qu plus Zi Wei, Tian Xiang, Quan and Lu (the Authority and Emolument transformations), the military officer on Wu Qu, the throne star and Fu Bi, and the clerk on Tai Yang, Zi Fu (the Zi Wei and Tian Fu pair) and the two aides. Two of the verses end on a breaking condition: the ministers' verse says that with void or fierce stars on the three sides the rank is "empty fame," and the two-offices verse says that if fierce stars come and break it "the good turns bad." The civil, military and clerk verses give only the setup that makes the post, though the setup is itself a condition: the clerk verse wants the Sun to have its light.

Four "masters of Career," and one "likewise"

The star list in juan 2 marks the palace each star "rules." Four of them rule Career:

"Master of Career" means the book thinks this star bears on the Career topic; it does not mean the star is useless elsewhere. Among the noble patterns in juan 1 there is one that names the Career palace outright:

Rising Sun at Fusang: the Sun on Rabbit guarding Life, and likewise guarding Career.

The condition is specific: Tai Yang on Rabbit, in the Life palace or the Career palace. The position can be worked out. Career is no. 9 and Life no. 1, and the branches run backward along the palace order, so counting forward from the Career branch, eight places reach the Life branch. If Career is on Rabbit, Life is on Pig: that is where the Rising Sun pattern places Career.

1. 1

   Say which kind of "office" you mean

   Post, duties, authority and income are separate questions; the Career palace mainly answers the one about duties.

2. 2

   Then check trine and opposite

   Put Life and Wealth on the same page, and keep the opposite Partner palace in its own column.

3. 3

   Translate office words when quoting

   "Military post" and "clerk" must become today's duties and roles, with the juan 2 section named.

Read next the neighbors Friends and Property; the overall division of labor is in what the twelve palaces cover, and the rule for taking four directions is in the three sides and four directions.