Surviving Financial Instability: A Scanning Salesman's Story

The movie is set in San Francisco in 1981, where Chris Gardner sells portable bone density scanner for living. Even if he is able to sell most of them, the period of time between the sales is very long and causes financial instability which slowly erodes Chris and Linda marriage. One day, while Gardner is in downtown trying to sell one of the scanners, he meets Jay Twistle, a manager for Dean Witter Reynolds, and during a taxi ride with him, successfully impresses him by solving a Rubik’s cube. By doing so he manages to obtain an interview two days later. After the fact Jay leaves, leaving Chris with the fare to pay but he has no money so decides to flee. He manages to escape but in the process he loses a scanner. The following day he agrees to paint the apartment in order to postpone being evicted due to his difficulties in paying the rent. While he’s painting the police arrives and arrest

His wife is not pleased and decide to leave, agreeing to leave Christopher, their son, with him. The economic difficulties don’t stop here, a large amount of money is taken from Chris’ bank account to pay taxes, leaving him with just over twenty dollars. He is broke and he and his son are evicted, forcing them to pass the night in a restroom of a subway station. The other days they sleep in a homeless shelter. During his internship he is disadvantaged by his limited work hours, so he elaborates time saving techniques, like not hanging up the phone and calling high value customers. Despite his economic condition he never reveals to his colleagues that he is poor, he even lends five dollars to one of his bosses for a cab fare. At the end of his internship he’s called for a meeting with his bosses, one of them notice that he’s wearing a new shirt and says that he should wear it again tomorrow. He obtained the full time