Fax Sign Presentation Later

I remember feeling nothing special or different.Seriously, it actually felt like nothing. I know this isn't as exciting as the other answers, so here is a panda that expresses how I felt:The reason I remember this so clearly is people were saying congrats after and then asked “So how does it feel.” I was glad to receive their congratulations! However, I didn't really feel anything with respect to to the actual defence/PhD completion. I promise I'm not saying this to sound cool by the way.So let me share my perspective.I have always been given the (good) guidance that a defence should be a forgone conclusion. Meaning, there should never be a question as to the outcome. This was true for me, I knew many months before my defence that I would pass, unless something truly dramatic happened.By virtue of the above, the defence was an insignNow activity. Perhaps it was a great feat in scheduling, but beyond that I didn't accomplish anything on that day. Also, the signNow events were centred around job/next step success. Since I already knew what I was doing next, this further reduced the significance of the defence itself, as it was not a real milestone.I don't mean to demean or belittle any of the other experiences here, so a priori I am asking to not take offence. I do however think there are milestones during graduate school to celebrate. Things like:First first author paperFirst conference presentationFirst successful group meeting updateHelping your PI with a grant and winning itWinning fellowshipsWinning poster/paper/presentation awardsThese are all nice milestones and show accomplishment of the things in the process of a PhD.

In 2011, I was rebuilding a mortgage division for a company in Kansas City. I was doing loan origination and processing.I had a client that had contacted me about re-financing her loan. She told me she had an ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) that on Jan. 1 would change the rate. She had a credit score of 738, so we weren’t having any trouble.The trouble came that night as she contacted me, rates were tanking… and EVERYONE suddenly wanted to refinance, so turn around times in lender underwriting went from 2 weeks to 4 months.The client came to me the end of October, so we expected that her rate may go up in January if we were not closed by then.I had compiled every bit of information I thought could possibly be an issue and had it all in the file, waiting for any issues with underwriting.Kim (client) called me the 2nd week of January. She said something happened and she was confused. She had mailed her January payment in before Christmas. She had just opened her mail, and her mortgage company had returned her check.I had not seen her original mortgage papers. They are not typically submitted when refinancing.I said, “Oh lord Kim… you don’t have an ARM, you have a balloon note.”She was not aware what a balloon note was. I told her it was a type of financing that was common years ago, but I had not seen one in a long time. You make payments for a certain period, and then you have a lump sum pay-off.She was convinced that was not so. I told her to find her original mortgage papers.I pulled her file and looked at the date on her credit report. By law, if the credit report is older than 90 days, the underwriter has to pull a new credit report before they give a final approval. If the report is less than 90 days, then they use the report they have.I quickly pulled her credit report again and sent it on to the underwriter for her loan. It did not yet show a late on her mortgage… at the end of the month it would.Kim sent me an email 3 days later that said, “Oh my God, it’s a balloon. I feel sick.”I told her to bring me the papers.She came to see me. She had disclosures where the loan officer was telling her it was an ARM. I made copies of it all, and wrote a letter of explanation and had her sign it in case I needed it. The loan was through the largest lender in the country. It was clear that they had misrepresented to her the terms of her loan.I got the approval, and we were setting up the closing. It was the 2nd week in Feb.The underwriter… not paying attention, pulled her credit report again. The report now showed a late on her payments, which disqualified her, and her credit score had dropped 200 points.They pulled the loan.I spent 2 days arguing on the phone that they violated procedures by pulling the credit report and reminded them that I had informed them of what was going on.They agreed that they messed up, but said they could not unsee the report.I had a client that had lost her loan, but was now in jeopardy of losing her house. I couldn’t get her financed through any of my lenders with the late that was now going to show on her report, and her score was now too low to get her refinanced.I then called my bank that I did my personal banking at. They are a small bank, with a handful of branches in Missouri. I knew they did not use automated underwriting software, but did the underwriting manually and followed common sense as much as what they saw on paper. They did not work with brokerages, and they said that they were not willing to pay our fees. I told them I didn’t care about that, I cared that this loan was done for her.I spoke with the head of their mortgage department. I explained what was going on. I faxed the file to them.I received a call from them the next day. They told me I had a very compelling story and I had done a good job building the case with the documentation I provided.They agreed to refinance her loan. The rate was higher than she was after, but it was still lower than what she had when she brought me the loan. They told her that if she went 12 months with no missed payment, they would allow her to refinance without all of the fees.She came into my office after she closed on her loan with them. She brought me flowers and hugged me. She said that they had told her that she had clearly had a broker that cared about doing what they felt was the right thing to do, and had presented a very compelling case for her.The lesson to learn: ALWAYS make sure you build a paper trail.

It’s a pretty freaking amazing feeling - and it literally feels like you’re on top of the world.But - before we talk about what it feels like after the deal is closed (or what it feels like wiring money to buy your dream car), it’s important to realize the “Exit Process” itself is just another roller coaster along the crazy string of rollercoasters that make up the startup journey.And - I would say, for many startups (and especially for two of mine), the Exit Process itself was the craziest of all rollercoasters.Exit #1:For my first startup, our “Exit Journey” began on March 10, 2000 (yeah, that March 10, 2000 - the day Nasdaq closed at its high).We had a meeting scheduled with a potential acquirer - but we didn’t have high (or really any) expectations for the meeting. It was going to be just another meeting among VC’s, other companies, etc. Almost routine. I wasn’t even going to go - it was going to be my 2 business partners, but Raj got stuck in NY, so my brother Sam and I would do the meeting. No big deal.I finished the slide deck about 2 hours before the meeting, and was GBC binding the decks in the passenger seat of my brother’s car as we drove to the meeting (a bit cramped, but I was able to get the bindings on, so good enough).It was a late in the day meeting. The CEO of the company was tired (had just come back from California), and we hit it off pretty quick. There was a strong chemistry between where the companies were going - and as we went through the presentation, there was lots of head nodding.Then we got to the price and - no big deal. We got Raj on the phone - discussed the price, terms, etc - and all agreed to do the deal.Easy peasy. Time to pick out the Ferraris?Not exactly.Over the next 4 months (which felt like 4 years), a million minor issues conspired to kill the deal. Even though there were no major issues, per se, it was like death by a million paper cuts - and watching our lawyers spar with their lawyers just made this latest rollercoaster more intense.Finally, in early June, our lawyers left us a voicemail saying “you guys should walk away from this deal” We carefully considered this advice, and said to ourselves, “no f**king way”. We soldiered on, and came up with ways to make the deal work.Then - on June 14 - we signed the Win/Win package (like 100 pages long with what seemed like tons of latin, and a million places to sign).The deal closed on July 5 - and I picked up my Acura NSX on the 6th. Sam’s bright red Ferrari convertible showed up a week later. Life was good :-)Exit #2:When it was time to go through my second exit years later, I was hopeful that the process would be much faster and smoother this time.Boy, was I wrong.Like the first startup, the initial meetings with the potential acquirer were pretty smooth at first - lots of chemistry, lots of excitement, etc. But like any other deal, things went cold - and after 3 months or so, it seemed like there would be no deal.Then out of the blue - things started up again about 6 months after the initial meeting, and this time we got to a price - and due diligence began.Over the next few months, all of the little issues got ironed out, and it looked like it would be smooth sailing.Then a literal technicality almost killed the deal.One of the documents in the deal said that it had to close by end of day on February 28th. When the documents were created, it was about 60 days out - so it was more than enough time. Nothing to even think about.But - our series A round was made up of around 40 individual investors. The lead of the round had to chase all of them down for signatures, and it took longer than expected (some of the investors were traveling the world, and didn’t have easy access to fax machines, etc).The Lead managed it like a pro - and got all of the signatures needed - and everything was a go with 1 week to spare, on Monday, February 21.Of course - normal i’s and t’s got in the way - and the deal still wasn’t signed by Thursday the 24th, One of the Board members then brought up a concern that the documents would have to be re-done because now time had passed and more interest was owed (we’re talking minimal $$$ compared to the deal). Fortunately, the Lead said no way (we’d have to get all 40+ investors to re-sign the new documents).Things were back on track for quick closing on February 25th. 3 days to spare - not a problem.Then the DE Secretary of State’s office made a typo (seriously), and the deal couldn’t close on the 25th. We’d have to not only try again on the 28th - but if it wasn’t signed by 5pm on the 28th, the deal would have to be completely re-signed (and it would have likely unravelled).February 28th, 9am - literally everything was on the line, but there was no action to take but wait, or play Angry Birds.I got REALLY good at Angry Birds that day.Finally - at 3:53pm the wire transfer came in. The deal had completed.1 hour and 7 minutes to spare. Life was good again.And I will ALWAYS respect the exit process as its own crazy rollercoaster.

In the early years of Fang Marketing, our largest client, a fashion retailer I won’t mention by name, had a really bad habit of not paying their monthly invoices on time.If you don’t work in advertising, then you’re not aware that this is fairly common. Companies these days are pushing the limits of timely payment on the contract level (Net 30 is very rare anymore, Net 60 is more common, but General Mills was recently chastised for asking for a six month payment window); however, on the non-contract level, large companies do whatever they can to hold onto their money for as long as they can so they can pay their direct employees, keep the lights on, and make interest on their cash. In the end, outside vendors end up getting screwed because the companies know that we can only complain so much or risk losing the client entirely because we won’t “play ball.”However, this client, whom we were regularly invoicing $20,000 a month for services rendered, would regularly pay a Net 30 invoice at Net 60, Net 90, or Net 120. As a startup with only a small collection of clients at the time, this meant that I had to constantly shuffle funds to pay my agency employees and eventually myself. To make this happen, I was using everything I could… credit cards, lines of credit, and my own sanity. The client would eventually do a catch up round of payments that would make everything all right and I would go back to being able to sleep at night.One time, said client had six open invoices overdue — that’s $120,000 outstanding. I had completely exhausted all my funding options to pay my employees and pay my rent, but I was way behind on a variety of bills and creditors were starting to call on a regular basis. Meanwhile, my home life was just a big pile of stress. My wife (I was married at the time) and I had planned a big, expensive Disney cruise with her three children and mother. Luckily, the cruise, the flight to Seattle, and various details were already paid for, but all our cards were maxed out and we had no cash for incidentals… like food. Sure, if we could just make it on the damn boat, we would be fine (cruises are all you can eat, after all); however, there’s a whole collection of little things to pay for to get to the damn boat, like cabs, trains, hotel rooms, and, you know, food.I was a mess and I got desperate, so, on the day we were supposed to leave for Seattle, I went over to the client’s offices and sat in the waiting room until I got paid.The first request was to my day to day contact at the client, who was a longtime friend of mine and was super embarrassed by the situation because there was literally nothing he could do. I really just asked for him to let him know that I was there and was about to do what I was going to do - work my way up the chain until I got paid.Next, I asked for the contact in Accounting that I worked with on a regular basis. She came out, also embarrassed, and explained that there was nothing she could do, but she did tell me who her boss was — the controller for the company. If you’ve never worked with larger companies that have their own accounting departments before, a controller is the real workhorse of the finance team. The CFO may get the big paycheck, but the comptroller is really pulling the strings.Somehow, the Controller came out to the lobby and explained that there was nothing she could do because the CFO was out of the office. I explained to her that, while I may not have a degree in finance, I do know how accounting departments work and that I knew that she could sign checks with an approval over the phone from the CFO, so she should go make some phone calls. She said that would be difficult because the CFO was out trying to secure financing for the company.Now I really started to panic. Holy crap — they weren’t paying me because they didn’t have any money!I told her to keep trying and proceeded to camp out in the lobby.Multiple times, various people would come out to talk to me and say that I could wait at my office, or in the courtyard, or that I could go get lunch and come back, and so forth. Each time, I would tell them I was fine — I had water, I had snacks, I had my laptop… I was solid. Luckily, this company didn’t have security and I don’t think they even thought about calling security for the larger building; however, I didn’t really give them a reason to call security. I was calm, I was polite, I wasn’t creating a scene, and the reasons I was there were completely legitimate — the company owed me $120,000 and if they didn’t pay me, my company was about to collapse.Six hours went by and the two people I now knew in accounting kept coming out to update me on their hunt for the CFO. Meanwhile, my wife was running around at home, finishing packing, picking up kids from daycare, and trying to explain to her mother why her crazy husband was sitting in an office the day we were supposed to leave for vacation.Just as my spirit was about to collapse, the Controller appeared and said she found the CFO and had got approval to pay the invoice. This was 4pm on a Friday at a startup, so it was amazing anyone was there at all. Every update after that was a minor apology — they lost the invoices, they had to figure out how to do a manual check, they had to find the CEO to sign the check, and so on. Finally, about 30 minutes before the banks would close, the Controller appeared with a check for $120,000.Have you ever tried to get a check for $120,000 cashed at a bank just before closing time on a Friday? It’s not pretty. Managers had to be called, other banks had to be called, and so on.I took as much cash as I could from the check so we had some walking-around money and put the rest in the account so it could clear by Monday. In the car on the way to the airport, I set up a collection of payments to go out of that money for lines of credit, credit cards, and employees who were waiting to get paid.We flew to Seattle, went out to dinner at the Space Needle restaurant, then went back to the hotel where I promptly had a full-blown anxiety attack.The next morning we sailed for Alaska. The client never went that far in the hole with me again.Coda:My company will turn nine years old this December. The client that caused this stayed with us for about two more years (about four years, total) until they pulled their digital media in-house. Other clients that pushed the limits on payment followed, but none this bad.I occasionally coach people who want to start their own business and use this story to remind them that running a business is more than having a great idea, but having the stones for everything else.

Laws will vary in different places.I have been a funeral director for over thirty years in Texas, and my answer is specific to here.Our Cremation Authorization requires the signature of the next of kin. If there are more than one person in this relationship (perhaps the next-of-kin are 4 children), the law now only requires that we get the signature of one of them (it use to require all). But our firm will require that all sign off on the authorization. If we only got one signature, and one of the others later protested the cremation, they might sue. We would win in the lawsuit (probably), but it always costs money for defense, even when you win. We don’t want the risk, so we require all sign. Those who don’t like our policy may engage another firm.But what if the person whose signature we need is not here? One or all of them?We can do it all by email and/or fax.I can fax the authorization to you. You can sign it before a notary and fax it back. I can do the same with the contract. In both cases, I will ask you to put the form with your original signature in the mail.An even better way is I can send you a .pdf scan via email You can print it, sign before a notary, scan and email back. Done this way, and because of the greater resolution of the scan compared to fax, you could send me a scan of your government-issued ID that has your signature, instead of getting a notary.For identification, it works the other way. We will NEVER (short of a court order) photograph a decedent - not for any reason. Again, if the next of kin authorizes us to do so, it will not be a crime - but if some other family member objects, we could have an expensive lawsuit to defend. Not worth the risk. We will not do it. BUT you can email us what you think is a good likeness, along with your signature authorizing me to make the ID based on that photograph. If I am able to do that, then all is well, and we will proceed with scheduling the cremation.So the entire thing can be done from far away, whether one person or more than one need to authorize. We don’t have to have anyone in town, and we do it this way once or twice a month. We use to do the same thing through FedEx back and forth. This is easier.

When my sister and I were about 19, we needed some extra money for school. Education in Iceland isn’t quite as free as many people from other countries seem to think it is, and we didn’t want to depend on our parents to help us out.So we heard through some friends that a local politician needed some help around his house and yard. Just basic cleaning, mowing the grass, walking his dogs, messing around in the garden, and other stuff that we enjoyed doing.The pay wasn’t great, but we expected that, so off we went to see the man about the job. He seemed nice, and hired us on the spot. He was recently divorced and lived alone, and said that with his job he was just overwhelmed with taking care of his house. That seemed reasonable, so we looked forward to starting work.We showed up the very next morning and he met us at the door. In his bathrobe, with a beer in his hand. We thought it was a bit early to start drinking, but we didn’t really care. He was very friendly and offered us some breakfast. We politely declined and started work.We began vacuuming and dusting in his living room, and assumed he would go off somewhere and leave us alone. Instead he sat down in his huge reclining chair and just watched us. Very carefully.We hoped he just was watching us to make sure we were cleaning the way he wanted, but after a while it started to become pretty creepy. We were old enough to tell when someone was just looking at us, or if someone was really looking at us.We finished the cleaning and asked what else he needed. Well, he put down his beer, gave us a creepy smile, and told us he wanted us to make him a sandwich. We knew where this was going, and it was someplace we definitely didn’t want to go. So I laughed, while my sister gave him the stink eye, and asked him again what he wanted.He started rubbing his doughy belly and licking his scabrous lips, and my sister and I were getting a really bad feeling about this. He then threw some ridiculous platitudes and compliments at us, and probably thought he was being witty and cool.He finally told me I could go outside and tend the garden, while Anna could go with him into the kitchen to fix him something to eat. I wasn’t about to leave my sister alone with the jerk, not because I was afraid of what he would do to her, but more afraid of what she would do to him.So I just stood quietly in the living room, while Anna and Mr Doughy Belly went into the kitchen. And sure enough, after only about thirty seconds I heard a big thump, and saw the guy stagger out of the kitchen, soaking wet with a metal bucket around his head.I then saw Anna calmly walk out of the kitchen holding a huge carving knife. I looked at the guy more carefully as he was trying to extract the bucket off his head, but I didn’t notice any blood, and that he still had his two hands attached to his arms. So that was good.It definitely was time to leave, so Anna put down the knife, but before walking away she picked up a vase of flowers from his table, and calmly smashed it over the bucket that was still on his head.We never got paid for our several hours of work, but that’s all right. It was good that we got out of there before Anna starting removing his body parts.We never saw the drullusokkur again, which is probably a good thing for him. We got another job in a couple of days, and I guess the old fool just had to learn how to make a sandwich by himself. :)

I have a great one: PRWeb.com.And the backstory is pretty cool.David Aaron McInnis launched PRWeb winter of 1996. (In early 1997, I first used the service to post free press releases).David’s initial intent was to put advertising alongside press releases. This was back in the very early dot-com days, when banner ads were all the rage.Fast forward to 2001.David has sold all of about $300 in ads, total.Not per month. But in the life of the business.In the meantime, he’s consulting to companies needing killer database programming, especially hyper-growth companies who were running into massive database slowing from poor architecture (did I mention David is kind of a genius? Yeah, that, too).Somewhere around late 2001, he went to a Garage Technology Ventures Startup Bootcamp.Guy Kawasaki gave David a “C” on his presentation of PRWeb.com.As in, “not likely to be a meaningful startup.”(P.S. Guy is a great guy, and a really talented writer, speaker and product evangelist. But, as we all know, predicting startup success is really really hard. So don’t ding him for the “C” grading of PRWeb).Of course, as is true with most successful entrepreneurs, David saw the C as a reason to double-down on the business.In a spark if insight moment, he changed the business model from advertising-based to contribution based:Upload your press release.Make a contribution ($5+) and PRWeb will optimize and improve your press release results in Google/Yahoo/Bing search. And maybe get some syndication as well.The play worked. And over a short period of time, the business went from $0 to $2,000, then $5,000 and plateaued at around $10,000 a month.The feeling was: that’s all the business will do: $10k a month.David continued consulting.While back east on a business trip, he tried to get into the PRWeb console from his hotel room.It took FOREVER.The site would time out over and over again.He had accidentally uncovered the bottleneck to his revenue woes: Internet Bandwidth.Back then, in a small town, bandwidth was almost nonexistent (he launched the company from Ferndale, Washington - a bustling burb of 14,000).David was able to talk the local internet service provider into letting him put a server at the base of a telephone pole, where some high speed connections lived.Bottleneck solved.The company continued to scale as David added more services (contributions), and beefed up the website.(There’s an extended story here: how we met. Working together through the sale of the company. Exploring businesses following the sale, etc…. I’ll save those for another post).Fast forward to 2005.David is getting fairly regular requests from VC’s who want to “fund” PRWeb.We discussed these every few months, trying to make sense of how to leverage an additional $4–$5–$10-$15,000,000 in potential investment.Like, how would that improve the business?At that point the business was doing more than $250,000 a month. Sometimes much more. Expenses were low. Employees were happy. Coding new features and expanding the platform to include Podcasts and Video were all happening.We received an offer to meet while at a show in San Francisco. An east coast media technology firm.They were listed on the NASDAQ. 16+ years old. And had rarely posted a profitable quarter.Here’s where it gets fun.We called them, and asked for a meeting.They flew out the next day for an all-day strategy grind.We showed them our product plan.They did the same.They even showed us their PRWeb clone.But one problem: They didn’t have 50,000,000 visits a month.We did.(Note to Entrepreneurs: Building killer technology and products is one thing. Building a customer base is quite another. Kardashian’s don’t make 6-figures and up per Instagram post because they have a great product. They make it because they “control” an audience of millions. Remember that…;-)David negotiated a sale price of $25,000,000 in cash, with some stock incentives as well.As in any good company sale, you develop a term sheet.A tool to help the buyer and seller agree on what’s important.As we progressed through the details of the sale, David realized how signNow the future tax hit would be. As well as how it might effect the employees beyond just getting a new, east coast boss.So, middle of the night, he would put together what we affectionately called a Kill List.As in Deal-Killer.In it, we had things like:1) Can’t move the business out of Whatcom County (Ferndale/Bellingham area of northwest Washington state).2) Can’t fire employees for up to a year. Must compensate them if let go.3) A bunch of other stuff here.4) Oh, and an additional $3,000,000 in cash to compensate employees and address some tax implications.It was amazing: David would email/fax the list.Their attorney would sign in agreement, and send it back.Usually within 15 minutes.(Me and Rick Rudman - Rick founded Vocus many moons before).In the end, everybody got what they wanted.And happy employees all around.One of the coolest things was seeing him compensate employees with bigger checks than they could ever imagine. Enough to pay for school. Make a downpayment on a home. Or even buy a house outright.The guy was more than generous.Still is.This business was bootstrapped.We rejected outside investment in order to ensure we made it profitable.And in order to control our destiny.I have many friends who are exceptional at taking outside funding: Friends and Family cash. Angel and VC investment. And growing a business with it to a spectacular liquidity event.But few bootstrapped businesses have the kind of market impact.Employee engagement.Incredible fun as we had at PRWeb (we would break every day to watch The Office. When Nacho Libre’ was released, David rented the local theater for a private screening for our employees).And an awesome, inspiring liquidity event.EPILOGUE: David is now creating a New Media firm to support entrepreneurs, startups, authors and other small business people.And I assure you, it will be a world class technology.With incredible people.Cuz that’s how it’s done.(P.S. David likes to fly. So, of course, he bought a little plane. That’s me totally posturing, as we boarded for a flight to dinner in San Francisco).PPS. A few years later, Vocus also acquired a service we loved at PRWeb: HARO (Help A Reporter Out) founded by Peter Shankman from his apartment. Peter, in the same vein as David, ALSO created HARO with no money and just an ADHD focus on adding value to the PR and Journalism markets. That story can be found here:Help A Reporter Out (HARO) Founder Shares His Entrepreneurial StoryPeter now heads the Faster Than Normal podcast, guiding ADHD entrepreneurs, Adults, Students, Employers and ME and Dave Young to become more effective using the superpower of ADHD as our fuel.

I have had a theory about that based on a friendship I had in the workplace that started about 20 years ago, and how some of our conversations were a lot like what Hill described in her testimony.About six months after I started working in a new job, they hired a new advertising rep who worked about 12 feet from where I did in the office. After a time, we got to know each other, and when I was promoted to be editor of one of the papers in the summer of 1999, we began working directly with each other on a daily basis, and were in adjacent offices.We became the best of friends. And there were times we flirted like hell with each other. Let me show you a picture…I actually took that photo in the office, probably about 2003.Anyway, it was common for me to just walk in there and start massaging her shoulders. Juli will still tell people to this day that no one does it better than me. We used to go to lunch together several times a week. We would have phone conversations and there were times I’d tell her what I’d do to her if she’d let me; she didn’t mind. Once we were in the office alone and she said she hadn’t…in quite a while. I told her to get naked and get on top of the desk and I’d fix that for her. Hell, she even used to joke with me about banging the 19 year-old receptionist (I was 30), and I told her I liked women, not girls.We never did cross that line, though. I never understood why until years later when she opened up to me about a family issue she’d never told me about then. It was something so serious that she couldn’t bring herself to drag me into it as a relationship partner, knowing I would have gone above and beyond to support her.There were things said between us that could be presented in a way that made it look like I was sexually harassing her for years—if taken out of context. But there was nothing said out of line. We are still friends to this day, 21 years from when we first met. When she got married in 2006, I was the witness who signed for her—even though I told her she was making a mistake (she was). There were times when she said in front of other people that she should have married me instead. When my father died in 2009 and I had to return to work and found out my typesetter hadn’t done her work while I’d been 300 miles away with my family, Juli had me fax the work to her that night, typed it for me, and emailed it back. She hadn’t worked for me since 2005…I read something on the Hill controversy years after it had come up, and what I suspect happened was a lot like this friendship I had. I think Thomas probably did make sexually charged comments to her. But I don’t think, at the time, she made it clear they were unwelcome, and perhaps they weren’t ever unwelcome at all. Humans do what humans do, and humans don’t turn off the impulse to be attracted to one another just because they are coworkers. Juli liked the fact that her younger coworker and friend (and later on, I was her direct supervisor for two years, when she transferred to editorial because she wanted to work for me) thought she was smokin’ hot. At the time, Anita Hill probably felt the same way about Clarence Thomas—even if she didn’t want to have a relationship with him. It certainly makes no sense that she followed Thomas to a second job if his behavior was oppressive.I could be wrong, but I think this was a simple workplace flirtation that was exploited years later for someone’s 15 minutes (28 years?) of fame.Any out of line comments will get deleted and you’ll be blocked.