The man at the Pixar Gate
I've waited a while to share this story, and shortly you'll understand why I've held it back. Mainly due to respect for the person who I describe.
Several years ago, I was working at a Berkeley - Emeryville startup (a location just north of Oakland and East of San Francisco) that was literally across the street from Pixar studios. I was both leading recruiting and executive coaching with a great group of people.
I came in one day, looked across the street, and saw a man sitting in a folding chair right in front of the main Pixar gate. I asked one of the team if they knew anything about him, and she immediately rolled her eyes. "Yes, a couple of us spoken to him, and it's a little weird. He has written a screenplay that he thinks would be a great Pixar movie and wants to share with them."
"He could use your help; you should go talk with him." I didn't immediately rush out, but he was still there when I came in the next day. So during a break, I walked across the street and started speaking with him. He confirmed the story that the team member had shared with me the previous day. He was polite enough to let me take pictures though never one of his face.
He was all-in on a screenplay he'd written, driving from Texas to California hoping that someone from Pixar would read it and produce it. He said," I believe in this, and I know they'll love it." I found myself immediately shifting to coaching mode and started discussing methods and approaches he might consider. After suggesting he might do some reach-outs on LinkedIn, he politely nodded his head and nothing else. At the end of my sharing one or two other ideas, he said, "thank you Sir, but I think I'll do it my way." And that was sitting in the chair waiting for someone to come out and ask about his screenplay.
By the end of the week, he was gone. The only people that came out to talk with him were security. Our team watched them ask him several times to leave – and he finally did.
I never found out if his screenplay was good, and to me, that was the tragedy. You could also debate if there were more issues here around his mental wellness, certainly a possibility.
It struck me as a sad lesson in how people treat their careers and particularly the job search: they wait for someone to reach out, to take the first step. So much of our work and our book focuses on getting comfortable with proactivity. For some, this is hard; the thought of reaching out to others can trigger lots of negative feelings, if not outright fear. But is the alternative any better?
The man at the Pixar gate put himself in a position to wait and wait and wait. If you treat job search and career development as an exploration, as a growth opportunity, reaching out is natural and safe. Waiting for someone to read your resume or be found on LinkedIn is not a job search – it's a hope and a prayer, done in isolation.
The core of our work and the book is to get people to talk about their goals and aspirations and tie them to helping an organization. Our hope: you don't sit at the gate but take small steps and engage with others in a graduated but authentic way. We outline three ways to engage – all of which focus on the other person.
I've thought about the man at the Pixar gate from time to time. Mental Wellness could have been an issue, but there were no signs anyone observed. It's a sad story and by sharing it, I hope others don't follow this path – the alternatives are easy! I hope he is well, happy, and fulfilled.
