When LaShonda Martinez’s boss first offered to freeze her three-year-old son, the programmer was aghast. “I was all like, you want to do what? But then, once they explained themselves, I was all like, yeah, maybe.”
In light of recent benefits offered by tech giants Google and Facebook to freeze employees embryos, Washington-based Microsoft revealed that not only had they a similar policy in place, but that they would actually place already born babies and toddlers into suspended animation as to not interfere with their employee’s workloads.
Says Head of Work/Life Balance executive Jacques duBois: “What we noticed was that some of our employees whom had already given birth were now struggling to work the same number of hours as they had before. So, what we came up with, in a similar manner to what you see being done with embryos, is that we can actually ‘pause’ the life of these young children, allowing our employees more time to commit to their job so that they may resume their parenting responsibilities at a more opportune time.”
The process, which may sound like something out of a Hollywood movie, is actually much simpler than it may appear. As the head of the project Doctor Alonso Veranda is used to the many misperceptions people have about such an approach.
“It’s a common idea that we just, how you say, freeze the children, like a leftover dinner or ice cube tray. But what we do, in fact, is relocate the children to an environment with a temperature more optimal to this cryogenic process. Their core body temperatures lower to such a degree that they are actually, how you say, frozen.”
With nary a regard to the irony of his statement, Dr. Veranda overseas a large facility in an undsiclosed location (north Utah) which houses the storage of up to a hundred subjects, with the expectation of more to come.
“We have the capabilities to accomodate several times the load we currently house, and we are also looking into market expansion. In fact, we currently have a privately-funded individual who is being preserved until the next season of Game of Thrones begins.”
But not everyone is taken with the idea. Local Seattle rabble-rouser Theresa Montclaire has made it her mission to speak out against this rather niche cause.
“Has anyone really thought this through? Say you freeze a two-year-old and thaw ’em out two years later: how old are they? Two? Four?” she asks, red-faced and out of breath. “Do they have to start school when they’re still in diapers? Has anyone thought of that? Thanks, Obama.”
But misdirected anger aside, it seems that the current work environment may actually feed the need for such services. When asked what she plans to do, LaShonda Martinez replies sagely:
“Yeah, I’ll probably just do it, you know?”