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Appreciation post: the notary at my old office who told me to read every page before signing
Back in 2019 I was working front desk at a small insurance agency in Council Bluffs, and part of my job was getting contracts notarized. This older notary named Darlene, who had been doing it since the 80s, watched me one afternoon just flipping to the signature line and stamping away. She pulled the pen out of my hand and gave me a talk I did not want to hear at the time. She told me that if I ever signed or notarized something without reading all of it, I was basically handing a blank check to whoever wrote it. I blew her off, figured she was just old school and slowing me down. About 3 months later a client brought in a vendor agreement with a clause on page 4 that let them auto renew at 40 percent higher, and nobody at our office had caught it. We had to eat the cost and my boss was not happy. Now I read everything cover to cover, even the boring pages, and it has saved me from at least two bad contracts since. Darlene retired in 2022 but I still hear her voice every time I touch a signature page. Anyone else have an old coworker who gave boring advice that turned out to be gold?
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aaronclark15d ago
What was on page 4 that nobody caught it before the client did, did your boss ever make reading the whole thing a rule after that? That 40 percent clause sounds like the kind of thing a vendor hopes you skip right past.
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