Thread by @Oregonian

A Portland U.S. Bank employee said she was fired after giving $20 of her own money to a customer who was broke and stranded at a gas station on Christmas Eve.

The man she helped called her firing “ridiculous.” (1/13)

“I was a customer of U.S. Bank, I needed help, and she went above and beyond,” said Marc Eugenio of Clackamas. “I felt so bad. She was the only one helping me.” (2/13)

On 12/23, Emily James, senior banker at a U.S. Bank call center in Portland, said she spent more than an hour trying to help Eugenio, whose paycheck from a new job had been placed on hold. The hold meant he couldn’t access funds and was essentially broke before Christmas. (3/13)

She told Eugenio to visit his Clackamas bank branch in the morning – Christmas Eve – and ask a bank manager to verify the funds from the issuing bank. (4/13)

Eugenio went to his bank and got his boss to verify his employment, but the branch manager was on vacation, and the bank was closing early for the holiday. There was no one, he was told, who could lift the hold. (5/13)

“(The woman at the bank) said, ‘My hands are tied, I can’t do anything,’” he said.

When Eugenio left the bank, he said workers locked the doors behind him. (6/13)

Frustrated, he again called the U.S. Bank 800 number to speak to the woman who had helped him the day before. He said he was calling from a gas station in Clackamas, unable to even fill his tank. (7/13)

“I said, ‘I wish I had just $20 bucks to get home,’” Eugenio recalled. “And she said ‘Wait, hold on.’” (8/13)

James handled calls from customers across the country and said it was rare to speak to anyone local. But in this case, Eugenio was just a few miles away.

On Christmas Eve? It seemed like a sign. (9/13)

She told Eugenio to stay put and that she’d be there within 30 minutes with some gas money.

James said she got permission from her supervisor to drive out to the 76 gas station at Southeast 122nd Avenue and Sunnyside Road, about 14 miles from her office. (10/13)

“I handed him $20 in cash, said ‘Merry Christmas’ and went right back to work,” she said.

Eugenio said he thanked her and gave her a hug. “It was like, ‘Wow, she really cares.” (11/13)

James finished the rest of her shift that day and again on Monday, Dec. 30.

But on New Year’s Eve, she said, the regional service manager was waiting for her when she arrived at work. (12/13)

“She said, ‘We’re sorry, we cannot keep your employment,'” James said. The reason, James said, was because of her “unauthorized interaction with a customer.”

Read the full story: bit.ly/2Nuftrx (13/13)