ALBANY - Maurice Rucker won't be putting on an orange apron at Home Depot again.

Rucker says he is passing on Home Depot's offer to give him his job back after news of his termination Tuesday for confronting a racist customer caused a public backlash.

He said part of his decision is economic: His $12.78 hourly salary is more suited to teens in their first jobs, not 60-year-old men.

But he also doubts Home Depot's sincerity. "They aren't really reacting to my situation. They are reacting to the community reaction and press reaction to my situation."

"I know hundreds of people who say they are going to cut up their Home Depot credit card and more that are saying they are never going to shop there again," he said Sunday.

Rucker was fired from his job at the Home Depot on Central Avenue July 12 after he left his cash register to call out a customer who was hurling racist and incendiary language at him.

Rucker, who was talking on the phone in a booth at the store's garden center, said he was initially confused when he said the customer pulled his cart to another booth and began complaining loudly.

"He's slow. He's just slow," the man repeatedly said of Rucker.

When Rucker told the man to put a leash on his dog, the response was furious.

"You're from the ghetto," said the man, who was white. "What do you know?"

According to Rucker, the man told him he wouldn't have a job if it were not for President Donald Trump, called President Barack Obama a Muslim who didn't know what he was doing, and hurled various curse words as well.

Fed up, Rucker eventually left his booth, walked up to the man, demanded he leave the store and added this: "You're lucky I'm at work, because if I wasn't you wouldn't be talking to me like this."

Five days after the exchange, Home Depot told Rucker he was being fired for how he handled the situation. Times Union columnist Chris Churchill told Rucker's story in Thursday's Times Union.

The backlash was immediate with people typing out their outrage at Home Depot onto social media, as well as contacting the Central Avenue store and sending the company emails.

By Friday, the company reversed course.

"We've taken another look at this and we are offering Maurice his job back," Home Depot spokesman Stephen Holmes wrote in an email.

Rucker, who lives in a studio apartment in Albany, had worked for 10 years at Home Depot. He started in a Boston-area store, then worked for the company in Vermont before transferring to its Central Avenue location seven years ago.

His hourly salary when he began with the big-box hardware chain: $12. His salary was $12.78 when he was fired.

For now, Rucker is trying to pay his bills by driving for Lyft.

But he said he knows he needs something that pays a better wage. He's gotten several job offers, many in retail. On Tuesday, he has a job interview with Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy, who reached out after the story made the news.

He said he was grateful for the public support.

As for the still-unidentified customer who set things in motion, Rucker said:

"This guy is just an [expletive] who uses Trump as his reason for coming at me - as if, if Donald Trump wasn't president I wouldn't have a job," he said.

"I had a job at Home Depot when Trump was just New York City's problem, not the whole country's problem."