Yeah, I'm shocked. I haven't been at MSFT for a while, but I had the opportunity to work with KC several times and I've never known anyone at any company I've worked at who was more impactful to team culture (in addition to being very good at her job). Layoffs are never good for morale, but losing KC in particular has to be a huge morale hit for the team.
KC took on the role of morale champion. If she were at Google, she would be the person who invented (or at least posted most actively on) memegen, but with less cynicism.
KC was a constant source of jokes and memes on internal mailing lists. She has a very quick wit and could make light of all sorts of internal events. It's hard to call out specific ones without getting into NDA territory, but they spanned the entire gamut of company culture. Because she had experience in so many areas (Office, Outlook, Windows Phone, Windows) she understood the big picture.
I believe KC briefly had a stint where part of her job description in the Operating Systems Group was morale/culture, and KC went to town helping to plan events, design and distribute swag, and more. The Ninjacat is her most famous contribution** but there were plenty of others too.
KC was the author behind Bedlam, a Microsoft-themed game similar to Cards Against Humanity. This wasn't a lazy retheme - the cards were hilarious in their own right and almost all of them had a funny anecdote at the bottom. Here's a random assortment I drew out of my set (there are probably funnier ones in there, but I haven't played since I left MS so I no longer remember specific ones to dig for): https://i.imgur.com/PMc6I4Y.jpg
KC organized a number of sessions to play Bedlam (and other games). These were open to anyone who responded and I met a number of amazing people through them. At this point in time, I was just an IC dev (mid level or newly minted senior, I forget) while KC was at least a Director, and plenty of other high-tenured folks joined in to those groups. KC created a welcoming environment where seniority (either in title or tenure) didn't matter and everyone felt welcome and like one of the group.
I stayed at Microsoft far too long. Financially speaking, I should have left after 2-3 years, and in terms of personal and career growth that probably would have been optimal as well. A bit part of the reason I stayed is because of people like KC. For all the politics of a big company, for all the struggles of working with 20-year old Win32 code, the welcoming effect of KC (and other wexcsul/osgrandom veterans) was incredible. There were other factors too (I was on a team where I got to work closely with a number of very senior amazing engineers who I learned a ton from), but folks like KC (and a few others who aren't as well known externally) were who got me through my cynical periods.
**yes, I'm aware that Ninjacat bears some resemblance to previous artwork. As far as I'm aware, that's all been worked out with the author and I forget the details and won't go into it here. Ninjacat wasn't originally intended for external distribution (it just exploded in popularity internally until it couldn't be contained any longer).
