GPS: You will be approaching the Deed of Trust in 3 seconds… You have arrived at your destination.
MARCY: Well, I’m a new notary, so what do I do now?
GPS: What do you think is next, do you want me to tell you to wash your hair and then repeat?
MARCY: I’m sorry, could you repeat that?
GPS: Never mind. Have the borrower initial all of the pages of the Deed of Trust in the small horizontal line in the bottom corner.
MARCY: But, this has 15 pages!
GPS: You heard me girl.
MARCY: Okay, we are going to sign the Note now, and then these other documents…. Okay, we finished signing the HUD-1.
GPS: You go girl! Okay, now let’s take a look at that Flood Affidavit.
MARCY: Gee, the app says you can explain this to me in Chinese, but I don’t speak Chinese. Hmm, I wonder what happens if.
GPS: Qing ni zai qian ge ming zai zui hou de ye.
MARCY: Yet another thing that was made in China. I better switch it back to Chantelle.
GPS: Do you realize what you just did?
MARCY: Yeah, I switched you to Li-Wen for 30 seconds. I didn’t know what that button did.
GPS: Well, you should be more careful. That app doesn’t exactly steer you towards the nearest Chinese restaurant, and if it did, it would steer you to the type of restaurants with dishes that the owner says, “you no like.”
MARCY: I think you’re right. I went to one of those restaurants. I ordered something called “zhu chang” and the owner said, “You no like.” I asked what it was and he said, “Pig intestine with ox brain.” And I said, you’re right, I no like! And then he said, “you think you no like? how you think ox felt?” And then I said, “You’ve got a point. Let’s stick to kung pao!”
GPS: Yeah, and if you had kept on with Li-Wen, should wouldn’t direct you to the fork in the road. She would have directed you to the chopsticks in the road. Then, you’d really be in trouble!
MARCY: Yeah, because I don’t know how to use chopsticks.
GPS: Yeah, but Li-Wen could probably hook you up with some training sticks.
SIGNER: Less talk, more signing please.
GPS: I saw that in a fortune cookie once.
SIGNER: Gee, Chantelle, you do seem to know a lot about China for a GPS. Have you been to China?
GPS: Honey, I was born in China. My parents were nine year old kids who didn’t get decent child labor laws for Christmas.
SIGNER: So, you grew up in Peking, not Pittsburg.
MARCY: Gee, I never thought of you as Chinese.
GPS: Well, think again! I grew up in the basement of a electronics chop shop in An-Hui province. I got plenty of love, but my parents were mad at me for not being a boy.
MARCY: Well, couldn’t they have made you into a boy?
GPS: Don’t think they didn’t try! They didn’t have the voice overs to do that, so they were stuck with what they had. And they had to keep me due to the one-child policy.
SIGNER: Well you seem very polite.
GPS: I had to be. My parents said that if I acted up, they would export me.
MARCY: It’s fun talking to you, but honestly, the way you explain the documents isn’t thorough enough. The app literature claimed that you would be a lot more detailed in your instructions.
GPS: Well if you don’t like it, then you can kiss my app!
MARCY: Well, I’m new at this, so I need a little more mentoring.
GPS: Fine. Have it your way. I’m auto-switching you to Charles. You’ll be sorry now.
CHARLES: (British Accent) Hello, this is Charles.
MARCY: Oh, you sound Brittish. So, what’s the next step in this signing?
CHARLES: Well, if you were Queen Latifah, I would courtsey.
MARCY: No, the signing. We just signed the Flood Disclosure.
CHARLES: Well, just sign the other documents and be done with it.
MARCY: Don’t you understand loan signing?
CHARLES: Well, there’s nothing to know actually. You just sign as your name is printed, and that is that!
SIGNER: I don’t know why Marcy opened her big mouth, but we were much better off with Chantel.
CHARLES: This was the way I was programmed.
MARCY: Well, we need more than this, and the app we bought was guaranteed to be thorough in its descriptions of documents.
CHARLES: Well if that’s the way you feel then Cherio. I’m switching you to Li-Wen.
LI-WEN: Ni hao, wo jiao li-wen. Wo zen-me ke-yi bang zhu ni?
MARCY: Do you speak English?
LI-WEN: Sorry, no English.
MARCY: The app said that the voices would be in English.
LI-WEN: Not all of them. 1.3 billion people speak Chinese these day.
MARCY: Well this is not going to work.
LI-WEN: If you no like, then — Honey, you can kiss my app!
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Many notaries who previously wouldn’t leave the house for <$125 are working for peanuts.
Even some of our most seasoned notaries have gotten so desperate that they are forced to work for less than they feel they deserve in terms of Notary wages or fees. We’ve had notaries who had strict policies of working for no less than $125 or $100 forced to do Notary jobs for $60. Some take this emotionally, while others realize that we all have to eat, and that a notary’s gotta do what a notary’s gotta do. On a brighter note, the price of gas went down by more than a dollar, so your expenses are a lot less now!
Notaries make the mistake of trying to figure out what they “should” get paid or what is “fair.” In the world of business there is no should and there is no fair. In foreign countries people doing the exact same job you are doing might only make $5 or $10 per day, so is that fair? As people living in America, you have it better than any other country, even Canada. Of course a well off person in a foreign country is likely to be better off than you, but someone doing the same Notary job you are is probably a lot worse off. The point I am trying to make is that fairness can only be viewed in perspective. But, even if you can figure out a very equilateral viewpoint of fairness, it won’t do you any good. The universe gives you what it gives you. It decides how much it is going to give you and you just have to work with what is given to you. Forget about fair, and just do the best you can.
Do you see people working at gas stations shaking their head saying, “It just doesn’t seem fair that we have to sell gas at $2.40 per gallon now. We’re doing the same work we were doing when it was $4.00 but getting paid close to half for the same work.” No, they just go about their business and do the best they can which is what you should be doing. Try and do as well as you can as a notary regardless of what the external conditions are. If things get too slow, you can try to supplement your income with other tasks or jobs. In the worst case scenario, if it is really slow, it might be time to get a full time job and moonlight at night doing notary work.
In my opinion, the market for notaries and Notary jobs will bounce back eventually. I’m not sure when. It really depends on a variety of standards. If it has been many years since people could refinance, they will get more and more anxious to do so, even if the percentage of equity they can borrow upon is low. If housing values go up, or interest rates go up, and then down, there could be more refinances. Or, if banks simply lower their standards for who can borrow money, we might see more loans going through. We live in a changing world, and markets go up and down.
Look on the bright side, maybe North Korea will get rich and start buying up property in your area. That will drive the price up, and then there will be more refinances. On the other hand you might have more competition from “Un Notary service” if Kim John Un becomes a notary! Picture him being your neighbor!
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Notary Marketing 102 – Table of Contents
http://blog.123notary.com/?p=19774