He repeated the thought to his wife over the telephone.
"If Charles had told me she was coming through the front entrance, none of this would've happened."
His wife was quiet.
Then asked, "Why?"
Keller frowned.
"What?"
"Why would knowing who she was make such a difference?"
He sighed.
"Because she's the CEO."
His wife considered that.
Then said, "Martin, would you have treated another customer the way you treated her?"
He stared toward the window.
For several seconds, he didn't answer.
Finally, he said, "You don't understand the pressure I'm under."
His wife sighed.
"Maybe not."
Then she asked something he didn't expect.
"But did you really throw her card onto the floor?"
Keller's face reddened.
"It slipped."
She was quiet.
He continued.
"She was being difficult."
For several seconds, his wife said nothing.
Then whispered, "Martin, you told me you worked in banking because you liked helping people build something."
He closed his eyes.
She continued.
"When did helping people become deciding who deserves to walk through the door?"
He had no answer.
So he ended the call.
And sat alone in his office.
At 4:18, a customer service employee forwarded a new complaint through the bank's official reporting process.
It came from a retired bus driver named Walter Greene.
Walter was sixty-eight, widowed, and had recently received a settlement related to an employment dispute. The money wasn't enormous, but it represented financial security he hadn't possessed for years.
He wanted to place part of it in an insured deposit account while deciding how to help his grandchildren with educational expenses.
He visited the downtown branch because he'd worked in the neighborhood for decades and trusted the First National name.
A teller directed him to reception.
He waited forty minutes.
Then an assistant manager asked whether he planned to maintain a relationship balance above a particular threshold.
Walter said he wanted to begin with a smaller amount.
The assistant manager suggested an online account might be more appropriate.
Walter explained that he wasn't comfortable opening an account on his phone and wanted help understanding the terms.
The employee repeated that the branch focused on premium clients.
When Walter asked whether standard checking and savings accounts were available, he was told the employee couldn't accommodate the request that day.
He left feeling embarrassed.
His complaint contained a sentence Amelia couldn't stop reading.
I spent forty years driving buses through downtown Chicago. I never thought I'd be told I wasn't the right kind of person to keep my money in a bank.