"I didn't want to disturb you," she said, "but I thought you'd better hear this from one of us. Karla was killed in a motorcycle accident last night in Greenville...."
I worked with Karla for five years before she got out of the IS department for a lower-stress position. She was quiet and reserved, but she had a way of getting under my skin. I often thought she had an attitude problem. Sometimes I thought she was basically unhappy. She was without doubt intelligent: she had devised several processes we still use today. But she had trouble communicating with her co-workers, and even when she talked her voice was quiet, almost unintelligible if there was any extraneous noise at all.
We butted heads often and got on each other's nerves. And I was really ticked towards the end of her IS days, because she had retreated into herself to the point where she might as well not have been there, and it was a relief to the whole department when she jumped ship. The last time I saw her she was relaxed and happy. I knew this because she was taunting us with the fact that when she didn't have to fix computers anymore.
But on Saturday afternoon she was at a toys for Tots biker rally. It was her favorite charity. On her way home from the rally an SUV pulled out in front of her.
Last month she led a team in the local Race for the Cure. Every week she was at the Toastmasters. Weekends she biked around the Upstate.
Last night they finally found her family (a father and brother) in Tennessee, because she had her work ID on her at the time of the accident, and our HR folks had the information on file. As of quitting time today no word was available on arrangements.
Karla Hensley was 44. She wasn't married, and left no children....
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