US Bank employee fired for giving $20

WASHINGTON: An Oregon banker gave $20 out of her own pocket to a struggling customer on Christmas Eve - but her good deed backfired when her employer sacked her days later, according to a new report.

Emily James, a senior banker at a US Bank call center in Portland, got a call on Dec. 23 from customer Marc Eugenio, whose $1,000 paycheck from a new job had been placed on hold - leaving him essentially broke, The Oregonian reported.

The glitch left him unable to buy his kids Christmas presents, and he couldn't afford living expenses either, KOIN 6 reported. After some back and forth with a local US Bank branch, Eugenio called James back at the 800 number on Christmas Eve. "I said, 'I wish I had just $20 bucks to get home,'" Eugenio told the paper. "And she said 'Wait, hold on.'"

James - who handled calls from customers across the country and said she rarely spoke to anyone local - decided to personally deliver $20 to Eugenio, who was only about 14 miles away, according to the report.

"I handed him $20 in cash, said went right back to work," James said.

But when James returned to work on New Year's Eve, the bank's regional service manager fired her for having "an unauthorized interaction with a customer."

"She said, ' We're sorry, we cannot keep your employment,'" James told the paper. "They were worried about my safety," the banker said. "He could have kidnapped me or shot me. But I wouldn't have left or even tried to ask if that was OK if I thought that this person would hurt me."

Eugenio called the decision "ridiculous." "It was one of the saddest Christmases," he said. "Promissory notes for Christmas gifts. And I can't believe [James] lost her job over it. The only one who seemed to care was Emily, and she got fired for that." At this point, James said she's not sure she even wants her job back.

"I can't change the world but I can change the world for that one person," she told KOIN 6. "I would rather my morals align with someone who's more willing to support someone like that than someone who's willing to throw away two-anda-half years and a lot of dedication."

In a statement, a US Bank spokesperson explained the company's decision to fire James.

'Merry Christmas' and