Unemployed: How Desperation Led Me to the Worst Job Ever

By Laura Dolan-Hayes

Desperate and overwhelmed by the mind-numbing sameness of each day during ten months of unemployment and no interviews, our heroine Laurie slowly unravels as she lowers her employment expectations. Coming apart at the seams from the pounding boredom, she accepts a job she is extremely overqualified for, because she is willing to take anything at this point. Watch as Lauries flawed and negative thinking takes her anything job from bad to worse to intolerable. Based on a true story, Unemployed shows how Lauries family, including a crazy and outspoken mother-in-law, gets what theyre thinking about, for better or worse, each and every time. Like a swarming band of locusts, the family brings on nervousness, lack of money, a raucous trip in an inner tube, a whopping case of hemorrhoids, the pursuit of a replacement dog (just in case), the medicinal consumption of gallons of red wine, and some pretty lively dinner conversation. Lauries thoughts take one shockingly simple turn, and the door to the life of her dreams swings wide open. If youre unemployed, working in a job you hate, have the boss from hell, have a crazy mother-in-law, or you simply like to laugh, you will relate to Unemployed: How Desperation Led Me to the Worst Job Ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452532462

Laura Dolan-Hayes

The concepts in this book marries the Law of Attraction with the state the world finds itself in on the topic of obesity. I am an expert on the Law of Attraction based on my previous book Unemployed: How Desperation led me to the Worst Job Ever. I have personally returned to my state of normal weight using the concepts in this book. I want to share with the world how to return to this ideal state of natural thinness without diet or exercise. The current state of obesity is a phenomenon that has never taken place at any time during the course of human history. It is time that common sense prevail and we put this period of absolute destruction and negativity to an end. Laura Dolan-Hayes lives in Plainfield, New Jersey with her husband Ken and their loving pets. She was educated at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology an Informatics as well as a master’s degree in Communication and Information Studies. She is a success coach, author, humorist, and college professor with a burning passion for football.

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Copyright © 2011 Laura Dolan-Hayes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-3246-2 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-3244-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-3245-5 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011908709

Balboa Press rev. date: 1/18/2016

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Desperation

Chapter 2. On-the-Job Training

Chapter 3. Good Vibrations

Chapter 4. Disappointment and Embarrassment

Chapter 5. Good News, Bad News

Chapter 6. Taking Off Like a Shot

Chapter 7. Nasty Grams!

Chapter 8. Monster Taxes

Chapter 9. Stupid and Incompetent

Chapter 10. Shock and Loathing

Chapter 11. Exhaustion and Comfort Food

Chapter 12. Losing It

Chapter 13. Sweet Relief

Chapter 14. My Dogs Are Barking

Chapter 15. Everything I Didn’t Want

Chapter 16. Adapting to Changes

Chapter 17. Cha Cha Cha Changes

Chapter 18. Management by Freak-Out

Chapter 19. The Scales of Justice

Chapter 20. Betrayed

Chapter 21. Taking the Plunge

Chapter 22. Pretty Please With Sugar on Top and a Cherry!

Chapter 23. Final Nastiness

Chapter 24. Desperation Part Deux

Chapter 25. Rebirth

Chapter 26. Put Me in, Coach

Chapter 27. Coincidence? I Think Not

Afterword

Conclusion

About the Author

Final Thoughts

To Ken, Lindsey & Matthew

May your thoughts bring you all the things you desire in life

Preface

In February of 2007 while I was unemployed, I was watching The Oprah Winfrey Show, as was part of my regular daily routine. Little did I know that this would be a life-transforming day for me.

The topic of the show was Rhonda Byrne’s newly released book The Secret, which instantly became a runaway best seller. After watching the entire hour, I was left absolutely confused and perplexed as to what this Law of Attraction is and how it works. The story you are about to read, based on a true story, takes place only months after watching The Oprah Winfrey Show on the Law of Attraction. During the experience I had with my former employer, I was voraciously studying The Law of Attraction, reading anything I could get my hands on, and listening to The Secret CD in my car on my commute back and forth to that awful, horrible job.

One of the things I realized fairly quickly is The Law of Attraction has been written about throughout history, and its properties are taught and discussed in all major religions. The Law of Attraction in and of itself is not a religious principal, but one based in science and quantum physics. If you want to know more about the scientific nature of this Law, I recommend reading Travis Taylor’s The Science behind the Secret: Decoding the Law of Attraction.

The premise behind The Law of Attraction is that your thoughts create your reality. In this book, you will see how my flawed thoughts brought me a reality nothing close to what I really wanted out of my life. The good news is you don’t need to understand the quantum physics behind The Law of Attraction to make it work for you … just like you don’t need to know how electricity works in order to turn on a light.

Please enjoy this lighthearted story of how The Law of Attraction managed to get me into the worst job ever due to my failed thinking, and how with a simple turn of my thoughts, I have attracted into my life everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

Acknowledgements

I would like to take this time to thank a number of people who have either influenced me or made it possible for me to write this book. I would like to thank Wendy Goldman Rohm, Literary Agent, for her help in bringing out the best humor in me. I do appreciate all the extra time you spent urging me to write what was on my mind, and to do it in an over-the-top way. Thank you to my former employer for providing the perfect storm of a horrific employment situation so I could write about it.

Thank you to my husband Ken, and my children Lindsey and Matthew, and Michael, my daughter’s boyfriend for both enduring the worst job ever with me, and for supporting me in writing this book. It means more than you will ever know. Thank you to my mom and step-dad, Bette and Harold Hartley for your support from The Villages in Florida, and Mom, especially for listening to me vent my frustration when I thought this book wasn’t going to happen. Thanks for being my mom, and thank you for being the very first funny woman in my life.

Thank you to my friends who stood beside me, especially when belief in myself began to waver, most notably Lori Jeffers, Carrie Chavers-Wills, Kamini Sanghvi, and Nitasha Beverly. Thank you to my mother-in-law Terry whose dialog I rarely had to embellish. Thank you to the late great Erma Bombeck for teaching, through her example, my comedic timing, and for pushing me hard, even from the grave to keep the promise I made to myself when she died. Thank you Erma for your essay My Turn which found itself in front of me when I was ready to give up, and gave me the fuel to keep going. Thank you to Carol Burnett, one of my idols, who demonstrates there is enormous grace in being funny.

A special thank you goes out to all of the Anne’s, Ann’s, Anna’s Ana’s, Annmarie’s, and all my friends whose middle names are derived from that beautiful name, who make my life so wonderful. I know I’m surrounded by Grace.

Thank You to all of the authors that have come before me who have written about The Law of Attraction, to name a few: Louise Hay, Cheryl Richardson, Martha Beck, Eckhart Tolle, Esther & Jerry Hicks, Jack Canfield, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Travis Taylor, and so many others. Thank you to Oprah Winfrey for providing a worldwide showcase on this most important topic.

Thank you to Bill Szoke of S & S Appliance Repair, The Best Appliance Guy Ever. Thank you for your wisdom, your gruffiness, your kindness, and appliance magic. You are the best.

Thank you to Lilia Carney, my makeup artist and hair stylist, for making me look great for my picture, and big thanks goes out to Dave Rossi who managed to take a terrific picture of me! I clean up pretty good! Thank you to Jamie Lee Curtis, the Queen of Scream, and Yogurt spokes model extraordinaire. Your scream has inspired me. Thank You to the late Mae West for blazing the trail for strong, independent, and sassy women. You were one helluva broad. When I grow up I want to be a great broad like you.

A special thank you to the entire staff at Balboa Press, whose help and guidance made this book take wing.

Chapter 1

DESPERATION

Everything that surrounds you right now in your life, including the things you’re complaining about, you’ve attracted. Now I know at first blush that’s going to be something that you hate to hear. You’re going to immediately say, I didn’t attract the car accident. I didn’t attract this particular client who gives me a hard time. I didn’t particularly attract the debt. And I’m here to be a little bit in your face and to say yes, you did attract it. This is one of the hardest concepts to get, but once you’ve accepted it, it’s life transforming.

The Secret

I crack open one eye as the early morning light filters through the mini blinds in a prism of color that makes me squint in pain. As I adjust to the light, my eyes open and I look around to try to figure out what day of the week it is. Funny how that isn’t automatic anymore. I scan the familiar landscape of my bedroom and see the celery-green walls and the white billowy curtains that are supposed to give the feeling of Jamaica on a warm summer evening. Instead of feeling Jamaica, my eyes scan to the top of the curtain rod and I see all of the accumulated dust. Funny, I didn’t know dust bunnies had wings. Still lying down, I can see the top of my dresser with all of The Spouse’s clutter, like loose change, bank receipts, pens, and oddly, a candle on one side and my jewelry box on the other. Above the dresser is a floral swag of purple and yellow flowers that’s hanging awkwardly by a thread. You see, my cat, Eli Manning, likes to stand on my jewelry box and bat at the swag with his paw. No matter how many times I fix it, Eli Manning will yank it down, so now it’s permanently crooked because, frankly, I gave up. I turn over on my side and look at the alarm clock. It’s 6:12 a.m.

I sit up