Watch what you do. You never know when it might
come back to bite you.

In a wildly ridiculous example, an Iowa man has
been fired from his job for a prank he pulled 49 years ago.

The De
Moines Register reports that Richard Eggers, a 68-year-old Vietnam vet lost
his $29,795-a-year customer service rep job at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage on
July 12, 2012, after seven years of service.

What did he do? Embezzle? Shoot a man in Reno
just to watch him die? Rob a bank? No. He put a cardboard cutout of a dime in a
washing machine at a laundromat on February 2, 1963. At the time, he went to
jail for two days. It was the 60s.

“It was a stupid stunt and I’m not real proud of
it, but to fire somebody for something like this after seven good years of
employment is a dirty trick when you come right down to it,” said Eggers. “And
they’re doing this kind of thing all across the country.”

The Register reports that big banks have been
firing low-level employees like Eggers since new employment guidelines were
issued over the past year. The rules forbid the employment of anyone convicted
of a crime involving dishonesty, breach of trust or money laundering.

The idea is to weed out executives and mid-level
bank employees guilty of transactional crimes, like identity fraud or mortgage
fraud, but those lower on the totem pole are apparently getting axed by the
thousands thanks to $1-million-a day fines for noncompliance. A million dollars
a day!

Wells Fargo spokesperson Angela Kaipust told
woi-tv  “We don’t have
discretion to grant exceptions in situations like this. Once we find out
someone has a criminal history of dishonesty or breach of trust we can no
longer employ them.”

The Register lists another victim of the new
rules, Yolanda Quesada, 58, of Milwaukee, who was fired from a customer service
job at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in May. Quesada had held her job for five
years and was canned due to a 40-year-old shoplifting case. She said was one of
12 children in a poor family and stole work clothes.

Charlene Eggers, Richard’s wife, said “His only
crime was being a teenager and being stupid. If that’s a crime we’re all in a
lot of trouble.”

So true. I don’t know anyone who would have a
job if we were held accountable for what we did as teens.

Think this is excessive? Or do you think it’s
fair?