Our Dumb Blog

Today was a milestone in my professional life.

When I first started working as a paralegal, my boss had me apply to be a notary public so that I could notarize his documents.  All you have to do in Colorado is fill out an application on the Secretary of State website saying you’ve read the notary handbook, take a quick test, and send them $10.  If you actually want to notarize anything, you also have to buy a stamp.  You’re also supposed to keep a journal.  I’ve always used cheap spiral bound mini notebooks as my journals and bought the cheapest self inking stamps.

I became a Colorado notary public on December 5, 2005.  You have to renew every four years. I figured in four years I’d for sure be doing something else for a living.

In 2009 I renewed my notary certificate.  All that you have to renew is to send in another $10.  I was pretty depressed about it.  I was still just a paralegal, a job that doesn’t even always require a high school degree.  I was working for a firm that did nothing but foreclosures, which I didn’t really mind at all, depressing as that might sound. I liked all of my colleagues.  I had a nice office to myself. But the boss was crazy and a tyrant.  Berck had been furloughed by the airlines and was on unemployment.  We were lucky I still had a job. And I was still working as a paralegal.

In 2013 I renewed my notary.  By then I was working at a firm that did work comp and Social Security disability.  I enjoyed the work and liked the two attorneys I worked for.  I got along fine with almost all of the staff.  My job was a lot less stressful than the last one.  Berck had since finished his degree and got a very nicely paying job writing computer code.  We’d bought a house the year before and had spent a lot time laying wood flooring and building shelves.  Things were pretty good.

I renewed my notary again today.  You can renew it three months before it expires.  I ordered a new stamp with my new expiration date (December 5, 2021).  I’m on my third journal, I think.  I still notarize a lot of stuff at work.  I’m now with a new firm, since the sole proprietor of the last one died and the rest of the attorneys decided to make a new firm.  I really enjoy my job.  I get to help people instead of taking their houses away from them.  I work for a fantastic boss, and I think we work really well together.  All three of the partners are great and are also good lawyers.  I get along great with the other paralegals. I get paid generously.

I’m still a paralegal.

And I don’t mind.