The Pursuit of Happyness

Gardner’s relationship with Jackie is becoming fraught, given “the need for more money”(192). Gardner tries to figure out how to advance from his $30,000 salary at Van Waters and Rogers; however, his “pen-wielding” manager, Patrick, humiliates him in front of buyers (197). A month later, Gardner has his pivotal meeting with the Ferrari 308 owner, which is mentioned in the Prologue. The man is Bob Bridges, a stockbroker with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, who commands $80,000 per month.

Although Gardner is inexperienced in all matters concerning Wall Street, he is confident he can apply his principle of on-the-job training and go on a “hot, relentless pursuit” of career in stockbroking, knowing with “every fiber of (his) being that this is IT” (195).

Bob Bridges offers to introduce Gardner to some branch managers at brokerage firms in San Francisco. When he goes for interviews with larger firms like Merrill Lynch, he gets a rush simply being in the environment, the experience being “exactly what I felt the first time I heard Miles Davis and saw how his music could totally change the mood of everyone hearing it” (197).

However, Gardner is rejected at interviews on grounds not so much of racism as “place-ism”; that is, his connection to the market is obscure.