It was a bank and a natural part of her job. She rarely provided the service outside of her job function, but she did sometimes. She was always happy to do it whether at work or home.

it's worthwhile.

Many had told me that the exam was difficult, but I studied and had no problem.

Keep in mind, you can't notarize anything that may personally affect you, and all your friends who need something notarized will come to you forever.

You also have to pay licensing fees to renew it.

Had a cool stamp.

IIRC, it's not very difficult to become one. If it was I'm sure she wouldn't have messed with it because she just did it voluntarily to help out the people in her office.

The test is harder than it used to be but if you take the prep course that they offer on the same day as the test you'll do fine.

The firm paid the annual license fee, the bond fees and the annual insurance premiums required for licensing. Since I only used it for in-house purposes, I never kept the journal and photocopies of proofs of identification necessary for a public license. Do you need it for your job or are you going to go into business providing notary services. If providing services directly to the public, check your state's laws on what is necessary to do so. If you don't have a bond and insurance, you could be personally liable for any mistakes in notarizations.

Some things to watch for: only notarize signatures that are signed in front of you and only with identification of the person signing (drivers license, passport). I once had a guy ask me to notarize his wife's signature -- he had her sign it at home and brought it to me. I told him that she would have to come to my office, with identification, and a blank document and sign it in my presence. Once a guy asked me to notarize an application for a visa (don't remember which country). He had the proper identification and was going to sign it in my presence. However, I read the notarization paragraph which said that I was attesting to his good character. While we worked at the same company, he was two floors away from me and I really didn't know him well enough to put my ass on the line for him like that. I declined to notarize. Watch the language of the notarization paragraph -- you are only certifying the identification of the person signing, not the accuracy or veracity of the contents of the document.

The wedding was held in a church and the notary split duties with the pastor. The notary performed the wedding ceremony and did a wonderful job...very sentimental.

use in my job (although I have notarized documents on occasion for co-workers). So in my case, I do not earn any additional income from it. We have a company on state contract and I just called them up, asked them to send me the documents, they took care of any filings and getting the bond, send me the notary stamp I picked out and bill us accordingly for handling everything for us.

Now a notary in Maine can actually marry people. I know someone who actually conducted her son's wedding ceremony.

Edit to add: Anybody taking a job with the State of Oklahoma, as a part of his/her employment paperwork, has to sign a Loyalty Oath. Most of my notary work dealt with notarizing signatures on this document. I have to admit that I positive cringe on the idea of having to sign a Loyalty Oath and of having to ask that other people do so as well.

and now I'm a notary in DC because our legal department does a lot of powers of attorney so our projects all over the world can be signed. Because the office paid my bond and bought the seal embosser and other stamps, the 5 notaries in our legal department are also available free of charge for the entire IFC. Heck, we even get people coming over from the World Bank to get their stuff notarized. It's no big deal, well except when the Indians need to renew their passports. That's painful - for them and us. Generally they need to have a whole bunch of stuff certified as true copies.