For the first time in over 30 years, I found myself in a college classroom this morning to take the NC Secretary of State’s required course to become an official North Cackalacky Notary Public.
The course and the examination one has to sit afterward has a reputation for being one of if not the most stringent and toughest in the nation requiring 80% as a passing score prior to being able to make application.
As you might imagine, last night wasn’t exactly the most relaxing with the prospect of being at Wake Tech as a student.
Even though I found my way to bed earlier than usual, rest was elusive at best.
I was genuinely looking forward to the class having read the required book cover-to-cover twice and Chapter 10B of the North Carolina General Statutes (the legislation that governs notaries). But that excitement was tempered with the realisation that there was an examination in my future and with those anything can happen when the examination paper hits the desk.
Let’s just say that Alan Shepard’s Prayer was being invoked early and often and that was the thought on my mind when the phone alarm made it’s hateful noise signalling it was time to get up, get showered, and meet my fate.
There were 20 of us who came together in the multi-purpose room and our ages were fairly well distributed where I was a bit north of the median. Our stories were fairly similar where the main difference was being a notary being our primary gig or our side hustle.
I had figured it would be a helpful skill to have with more of my work tending toward consulting, accountancy and doing tax returns so that clients didn’t have to go to the hassle of going to the bank to get documents notarised. But what really sold the notion of becoming a notary to me is being able to serve the needs of the people of the state I’ve loved all my life. I’ve got no doubt there are people who are rolling their eyes at how corny and hokey that sounds but I assure you that the sentiment is quite genuine.
Like it or not, paperwork of all kinds is the vital lifeblood of many business and legal transactions and being a vital part of ensuring these. documents and transactions are executed correctly is not a trivial matter. Were it not for notaries exercising their ministerial functions, commerce and legal activities would be decidedly less efficiently transacted.
So here I am in class with book, paper, and pen in hand wondering if I’ve been out of the game too long to do well enough to survive the class, much less gain a notarial commision from the North Carolina Secretary of State.
Our instructor pretty much allayed those fears from the moment the lecture started. It’s always nice when the teacher’s operational concept and mantra is Gene Kranz’s “failure is not an option”.
She certainly kept the class interesting which can be a bit of a challenge because legal concepts and studying legislation in detail can often try the patience if not the consciousness of the students if they’re not legal eagles or policy wonks. But with a judicious mix of humour and constantly keeping us on our toes not knowing when questions were coming our way, there was no way we were going to sleep through the course.
The next thing I know, we’re through the slide deck and now the moment I’d not been looking forward to was at hand.
The examination.
It’s not “test anxiety” in the traditional sense where you see the paper and completely freeze. My hang-up is more along the lines of overthinking the questions and answers and talking/rationalising myself out of relying on my instincts to go with the answer my gut tells me is correct.
We had a bit of excitement with some of the test papers missing the even-numbered pages but once that’d been sorted, there was nothing to do but just get to it and see what my fate would be.
I think I was 13th or 14th to finish the examination and wait in the queue to get the result. I felt reasonably confident that I had passed the required score but there were a couple of questions that I had some doubts about the answer.
Finally it’s my turn.
I rather wished I had the massive tomes the monks in Monty Python’s “Holy Grail” used to whack their foreheads as they were chanting “pie Jesu domine…dona eis requiem!”
Mrs King actually ended up scoring the test twice which did wonders for the nervousness I was already feeling.
I had entered my details into the computer and was waiting for the number for the grade input box that would decide how things would proceed.
And then I had that number for the Secretary of State’s database…
100.
I think it’s safe to say that I was shocked. In fact, that was a grand understatement…shocked beyond belief, more like.
One trip to the break room next door to have the application form notarised (even though our instructor is a commissioned notary, she is not permitted to notarise the application to avoid implications of conflict of interest) and my first class in 30 years was history.
It won’t be my last one. There is a second course that adds the ability to do electronic notary acts in addition to the traditional wet ink ones and there’s no reason not to get that commission as well.
But I have to wait until the application is processed and I am instructed to report to the Wake County Register of Deeds to take the oath of office (notaries in North Carolina are considered public officials by law) and accept the commission. That’ll likely take a couple of weeks to complete but I should be able to add eNotary before the new remote notary laws are due to come in force in July with the retirement of the emergency video notary procedures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Right now, I’m just thrilled beyond imagining that I’m just a couple of procedural steps before being able to officially serve as a North Carolina Notary Public in the service of the people of my state.
I may not have slept at all well last night but I have a feeling tonight will be a very different story. 🙂