– “Africa’s 2000-year-old trees of life are suddenly dying off“, New Scientist, 11 June 2018
Born 0-500AD: The generation everyone is glad to see the back of: the baobaby boomers. Took advantage of a thriving ecology to lay down roots in some of the desert’s most desirable neighbourhoods. Strong and majestic, in possession of the wisdom of the ages while somehow absolutely incapable of handling upgrades to the printer software.
Prone to signing off work emails with a string of animal emojis nobody can understand, or collapsing unexpectedly owing to sudden infestation by termites. Will keep a lock on all a region’s resources in life, and somehow find a way of screwing everyone else out of them even in death.
Born 500AD-1000AD: Gen X. Real problem-solvers, brought up to believe they could have it all: a regular supply of water AND direct sunlight. Will fight for what they believe in, especially if their opponents move at fewer microns per millennium than they do. Fuelled by a genuine belief they’re still young, they will occasionally drop in references to gregorian chanting as though people still listen to it.
Not great believers in emotional openness, they can struggle with empathy and teambuilding, as well as anything involving motor skills like a tea run or breathing.
Born 1000-1500AD: These trees under a thousand years old, also known as millennials, are often seen as lazy, self-centred and entitled. They’re thought to be irresponsible, incapable of taking criticism, and utterly unwilling to challenge themselves in any way, not to mention lacking basic social skills and unwilling to take their own lives in hand. These criticisms do all have some merit because we are, at the end of the day, talking about trees.
That being said, these baobabs can be a real asset to your organisation. They can be genuinely creative thinkers, capable of providing incredible outside-the-box solutions to anyone who lets them plug in their avocado toast while snapchatting their lifetime of student debt.
Born 1500-2000 AD: Gen Z. They grew up never knowing a pre-renaissance world, not that the end of the middle ages affected them all that much because they’re still just trees. You can always tell their presence in an office by the loud music they play and the number of thinkfluencers they follow on YouTube.
Gen Z baobabs may seem ill at ease in an office environment, but don’t worry, they’re just silently judging you for being uncool. They love to hear stories about what life was like before they were planted, if only to mock them for likes on social media. Also, never mention paper, talk about paper trails or ask them to do paperwork. They get very sensitive about handling the corpses of dead trees and could quite easily launch a workplace harrassment lawsuit that will bankrupt your business.