In the process of job hunting for life after ESPN, I managed to land some early interviews with Pixar. While technically it would still be under the umbrella of the same company (Disney), Pixar is sort of that company for me. I love everything they do and want badly to be a part of creating beautifully told stories.
But as we were going through that process my wife and I struggled with the fact that going to Pixar meant moving to California. We’ve been planning on moving to Knoxville for quite a while, and we just weren’t sure San Francisco is where we wanted to live.
Then things changed. We found out we were going to have our first child. I still badly wanted the job with Pixar, but the decision was no longer a struggle. We want to raise children surrounded by family and friends. We weren’t going to move to San Francisco. It hurt badly and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I had to tell them I wouldn’t be going any further in the interview process.
I had friends say I should have kept going through the process, but that just felt wrong to me. Yes it’s good experience, but in my option it’s selfish to waste the time of hard working people when I know I’m not going to take a job offer. I think it would have shown a lack of respect for the people I was interviewing with.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it every day and feel a little sad, but I think a lot more every day about that baby and how excited I am to raise him or her around my family and friends.