Posted by BrendaTx on 10/24/11 8:50pm
Msg #401519

Why there are Grumpy Old Notaries on NR

Researching about Harry and posting competing websites brought back a lot of memories. It was a tiptoe through the tulips...faded memories lit the corners of my mind. I felt like it might be beneficial for the newcomers to know the history of the Grumpy Old Notaries.

===========================================

The Grumpy Old Notaries of NR

When we first started out here in '03 and '04, we didn't have a search button and we LIKED IT LIKE THAT!

We had to crawl three miles in snow just to get to the computer to read NR and by the time we got here, our hands and knees were bleeding...they bled all over our large, awful beige desktop computers and matching clickety-clack keyboards...the blood smeared across our 65 lb. monitors when we reached up to turn them on...it dripped on our barely-PCL adequate laser printers that spit out three to six sheets of loan docs per minute after pulling from lone trays.

Every NSA's latest technology flip phone (unsmart/big keys/no texting) or land line phone and thermal paper fax was bloody. WE LOVED IT LIKE THAT.

We, the Grumpy Old Notaries, read every single post that was made at NR. The search button has changed all that and people just search! Harrumph.

Every new poster should have the "Read from the beginning" experience that the Grumpy Old Notaries did when NR was a fledgling business. Hugh and I, then a couple of kids, came along around 3,000 posts, I think.

Everything was posted in linear form. Once you clicked on a link in linear view, it would go to a threaded view. WE HAD TO WRITE DOWN THE LAST POST NUMBERS THAT WE READ or we would lose our places...and have to go back to the beginning to Msg. #1 Those were the good old days.

No searching...no orange button...so if you wanted to find out if something was here, you read from Msg. #1 forward EVERY SINGLE TIME! AND, WE LIKED IT LIKE THAT!!!! We didn't need a search button!

We kept running notebooks of topics and the message numbers so we could flip to them. We flipped and wrote so much that our hands cramped and we had to get the kid next door to button up our parkas so that we could crawl away from the computer back through the cold.

We read the same thing 50-100 times trying to find some tiny nugget. We memorized it all. It was tedious....complicated...time consuming...AND IT WAS WONDERFUL...WE LOVED IT LIKE THAT!!!!!

WHEN THE NEWBS CAME

When the newbs started coming in by the dozens and started emailing, calling and asking the Grumpy Old Notaries questions on the forum about stuff that had been posted about one hundred times on the forum...well, we might have been a little tiny bit cranky. We might have even taken it a little personal...righteous indignation filled posts...perhaps some of us even felt that our civil rights had been taken away...okay, some of us had problems with rage when the newbs came with their questions....but, all with good reason.

We had read each of those discussions at least one hundred times when flipping through posts to DIG FOR OUR OWN ANSWERS. WE DUG THROUGH THOSE POSTS BY OURSELVES, TOTALLY ALONE! IN THE COLD AND DARK WITH NO HELP!! WE never dreamed of saying, "Hey, tell me how to be a signing agent...any shortcuts? Got any good companies? Send me an email. I don't have time to check this board all the time."

Sometimes Grumpy Old Notaries were really grumpy...okay, there were those eight who had psychotic breaks and were hospitalized. Understandably, at least three of us (NO NAMES MENTIONED) have done time after driving cross country between EOMs in a blind red rage to wait by a newbs door to shout at them in person...those incidents always seemed to escalate.

WE HAD SEARCHED AND SEARCHED IN THE DARK BY OURSELVES until our wrists got terrible carpal tunnel and our feet started having mold and fungus because we could not wash them properly due to the pain...and we hardly had time to shower...but we kept on learning and digging for information.

WHEN WE ASKED A QUESTION, we knew the answer was not already there because we gave up sleep to read all of the posts.

WHEN WE ASKED A QUESTION, we were ready to pony up something of value to barter...NR was our frontier...our Wild West...we started hoeing rows of nothing, we tilled the soil by hand for fun...we pretended to live off the land and we made our own clothes...even the men started making dresses from feed sacks and wearing them over long, scratchy woolen underwear. WE LIKED IT LIKE THAT!

Our eyes went bad from reading the screen, necks had constant spasms...we became stooped over; kids and spouses got fed up and left. We forgot to pay bills and the electricity and water were cut off.

Elderly parents disowned us and cut us out of wills..and, our feet did not smell so good. We poured a box of baking soda in each shoe...finally had to tie our shoes to our feet with old rags so they would stay on with all that baking soda in them....AND, WE LIKED IT LIKE THAT!!! WE LOVED IT LIKE THAT!!!

Most of us had started wearing Depends and taking No Doz so that we could stay at the computer day and night to learn everything we could about our businesses BEFORE we launched them. A few younger notaries who were with us in the trenches in those days looked older than their grandmothers.

So, when the newbs came calling and ASKING FOR US TO HAND OVER OUR BLOODY, SWEATY, TEAR-STAINED BODY OF RESEARCH? NO WAY! We had TO DIG FOR OUR OWN ANSWERS.

Back then, before all those $35-$45 edoc days, there were a lot of delivered loan packages. Thank goodness. It saved many lives. Sometimes it saved our dignity.

AFTER DOING OUR OWN RESEARCH, most of us started this business in such bad shape with carpal tunnel in our wrists and carpals in tunnels we did not know that we had...we were hardly more than shells of the men and women whom we had once been, but WE WERE HAPPY AND WE LIKED IT.

Most of the time we had to beg the UPS and FEDEX men and women to open our doors and packages for us, make fold-over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us so that we would not starve, and then we looked at them with our bleary eyes and begged, "Please sir, help me open my car door." We hobbled in shoes leaking baking soda carrying those precious UPS and FEDEX packages that we knew so much about BECAUSE WE READ EVERY POST ON NR...some of us crawled out to the car on bloody knees...all of us in our Depends that we probably forget to change.

We went to our first signings smelling a little funky and with tears of both pride and pain welling up in our eyes and turning to ice in those subzero blizzards (even in summer)...some of us suffered from NR blindness.

Ah...those were the days....AND, WE LIKED IT LIKE THAT!! It was great.

Hugh composed a regular message that he posted every time a NEWB appeared and cheerfully asked us to hand over the farm....if you were a GRUMPY OLD NOTARY then you undoubtedly have it memorized and cheered from behind your flickering screen when he put it up. Here is one of hundreds that he posted:

Msg #8823
Advice for new notaries

Above the menu of posts, click the "First" button. Go all the way to the very first post in June 2003, "Welcome to the General Discussion Forum." Read all the way to the last post today. You will find your answer many times over in the intervening messages, along with far better information about being a signing agent than you ever got in your certification course.

Reply by Stoli on 10/24/11 9:05pm
Msg #401522

Look how many posts since Hugh's Msg #8823. Msg #401519 n/m

Reply by Linda_H/FL on 10/24/11 9:07pm
Msg #401523

Thank you Brenda...and Amen!! n/m

Reply by MistarellaFL on 10/24/11 9:15pm
Msg #401524

I love you, Brenda

Thank you for eloquently explaining it to those whose hands have not yet been bloodied and faces yet to be tear-stained.
Sometimes I long for those midnight postings.
I think Sk8-er H8-er Erin turned me into one of those grumpy notaries.
Or, maybe it was Bad Advice Fran.
Who cares? I am one of the grumps and and I LIKE IT THAT WAY!

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/24/11 9:25pm
Msg #401527

LOL...I know...I'm trying to remember when I went

to the dark and grumpy side.

I believe it was when this woman kept calling me and asking me questions. I finally gave her some time and started giving her a step by step way to start...she lost interest very quickly...then it was clear that her eyes were glazing on the other end and that it was going to be WAY too much work for her.

I was shocked at her persistence. I was shocked at how soon she gave up after MAKING ME talk to her for an hour.

I got too many of those calls. It made me into a monster.

Reply by MistarellaFL on 10/24/11 10:23pm
Msg #401530

Re: LOL...I know...I'm trying to remember when I went

Yes, THOSE calls... newbs wanting "advice".
Same questions over and over and over and over and...you get the pic.
Eventually, I learned to start the advice with collections advice.
A real issue they hadn't really considered.
Seriously, this is the only field I know of where this many subcontractors are not paid in a timely manner, and where this many subcontrators get stiffed.
But, yeah, they (newbs) can make an NSA a GON.

Reply by MichiganAl on 10/25/11 12:10am
Msg #401538

Re: I love you, Brenda

Oh, them there are some classics! Fran (aka FlawedMac), who couldn't answer a true or false question correctly if you gave her two chances, was definitely a contributor to Slightly Annoyed Notary. I don't think I turned into Grumpy Angry Notary until (name omitted because he'll threaten to sue me) and his unique brand of self importance never wrong know-it-allness showed up. And there was his goofy cast of misfits always chirping in the background. If you ever wonder why a notary board has a "just politics" forum, you can thank (name omitted because he'll threaten to beat me up at a donut shop). Then there was the dude who used Notary Rotary as his daily personal blogging space. Ah, good times.

Reply by MistarellaFL on 10/25/11 12:38am
Msg #401540

OMG, Al, I almost forgot about him, here's a blast

<<<I demand a public apology for all that Alex posted and a retraction stating I am not a threat to the President nor national security and that his post was nothing more than ranting.>>>

Of course, not to be outdone by this next particular whole day of postings.....
Msg #169135

Enjoy....and laugh your azz off.

Reply by FlaNotary2 on 10/25/11 10:31am
Msg #401575

(sigh) You really think you're funny, don'tcha Al? n/m

Reply by MistarellaFL on 10/25/11 1:28pm
Msg #401620

GEEZ, You are really being silly, Robert

Al's post has NOTHING to do with you....although you may think the sun revolves around Uranus, it doesn't.

If you read my post to Al, and click on the msg number, you might be smart enough to figger out WHO Al is really referring to.
We really did have a life here before you showed up, and WE LIKED IT LIKE THAT!

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/25/11 10:52pm
Msg #401707

Robert, I can promise that none of the characters

that Alex referred to were you. We've been through a lot of history here together.

If my calculations are correct, we started posting on NR while you were in 7th or 8th grade. If you met someone at that time and became the kind of friends who talked almost every day for that many years...you would know that person very well. I would know if Alex was talking about you. He is not.

If you want to see the conversation, search for "donut" and go back to August 16, 2006.

So, that's one reference. He refers to the Florida notary "Fran" or "FlawedMac." Search for FlaMac...that will keep you busy and in stitches for hours at some of the outlandish things that she said. The other one...the blogger...was not you either.

Reply by MichiganAl on 10/26/11 12:17am
Msg #401722

Wow, was that really FIVE years ago??

Seems like only yesterday. I just had to go back and read some of his stuff again. Still makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

Reply by Lee/AR on 10/24/11 9:23pm
Msg #401526

ROFL.... Perfectly beautiful! (signed: one of the GONs)

You just may have coined a new NR acronym: GON

Reply by MistarellaFL on 10/24/11 10:07pm
Msg #401529

Finally, a post to refer those "entitled" notaries:

Msg #401519

Reply by desktopfull on 10/25/11 8:22am
Msg #401556

Your right, this is the perfect message. n/m

Reply by HisHughness on 10/24/11 10:33pm
Msg #401531

I will never again post anything in NotRot

Once you have seen perfection, all else is anticlimatic.

Reply by Claudine Osborne on 10/24/11 10:34pm
Msg #401532

Re: I will never again post anything in NotRot

Ah..Hugh I would miss you too much..lol..Brenda this is so darn good I love it!

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 10/24/11 10:49pm
Msg #401533

Correction: It's anticlimactic n/m

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/24/11 11:58pm
Msg #401536

Awww, thanks, Hugh.

We all had good times. It went by so quickly. Thank goodness for NR and all the GONs.

I remember comparing the easier-to-use-searchable board at the practically now defunct GMN to NR's not so easy to use interface. Even though NR had to be read in linear view, it seemed like the info that was posted at the time was of a higher quality.

Reply by jba/fl on 10/25/11 6:55am
Msg #401549

Re: Awww, thanks, Hugh.

Your memory does not fail you - it was of much higher quality lo, those many moons ago.

Give me linear view any day - the only way to read IMHO

Reply by Karla/OR on 10/25/11 1:58am
Msg #401541

Brenda~ that is one of the funniest things I have read in quite a while. You should write children's books - you're style is very colorful! Oh and, I am a newbie and have a greater understanding for where you came. Thanks so much!!!

Reply by JanetK_CA on 10/25/11 3:03am
Msg #401543

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, memories!!! ;>) thanks, Brenda!! n/m

Reply by BobbiCT on 10/25/11 7:22am
Msg #401551

ROFLOL. So true. Thanks from rapidly aging grumpy notary/nm n/m

Reply by Notarysigner on 10/25/11 7:57am
Msg #401554

Thanks Brenda! n/m

Reply by NJDiva on 10/25/11 8:58am
Msg #401560

And I thought Iiiii was a drama queen...lmao...roflmao

Awesome, awesome awesome!

I always respect you ole GON's feedback but now I'll cherish it knowing how incredibly PAINFUL it must have been and must BE to have to endure the repetitive circling of questions and answers, actions and reactions, indignation, whining, entitlement, self righteous entitlement and just plain "stupidness" of those who think they know and then those who don't know that they know already (how many had to read that three times to get it? roflmao...makes sense to ME!!!).

The bottom line is THANK YOU, THANK YOU THANK YOU our longtimer NSA's!!! You teach me more and more everyday...AND, I LIKE IT LIKE THAT!!!! You all are the best!

Warmly,
Cheryl

Reply by JanetK_CA on 10/25/11 12:30pm
Msg #401606

And a Dana Carvey reference for those too young to remember

(I probably should also add some kind of "mature audience" reference - but this did air on TV, after all, even if it was late night... )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1_NhnXMCKw

Dana Carvey was always one of my fav's on that show! (And I don't think this clip was his best example of his GOM, but it was the only one I could find quickly.)

Reply by NJDiva on 10/25/11 2:55pm
Msg #401647

OMGosh that was hysterical!!!

It certainly was NOT before my time, but I don't recall that particular skit.

Loved it! Thanks for the laugh.

Reply by BrendaTx on 10/25/11 10:15pm
Msg #401700

Janet, THANK YOU! I think about that character

a lot...especially when I get tuned up to tell someone how it used to be.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 10/26/11 12:40am
Msg #401726

Re: Janet, THANK YOU! I think about that character

When I was reading your post, I was hearing it in Dana Carvey's voice as the GOM!!!

AND IIIIIIIII *LIKED* IT!