I saw the headline.

My initial response: "Boo Hoo buddy!"

Then I read the article.

OK, I have a little more sympathy for you, but I still have a difficult time going that extra mile to really, I mean really, feel bad for you, oh former AIG employee.

I do agree that your boss was a weasel. Any stand up person would have had the guts to come out and say "no bonuses until we weather this out", but no, that didn't happen. I sympathize with you there.

I also sympathize with you because you (claim that you) were not one of the ethically challenged people that created this credit crunch mess we are in yet you get blamed. To this I respond: This is normal human behavior. People are looking for a scape goat and it's up to AIG to prove to the public that they've got what it takes to bring this boat back on course

I also think that it's valiant that you decided to work for $1 and put your time into this to fix this mess. A person of lesser moral character would not have done this.


However:

You WERE there when people were going nuts over these securities. As an MBA student in finance I was appalled by this practice because it didn't make fiscal sense (even though some of my classmates were salivating at the wonderful prospects of these securities). Yet no one at AIG stood up to stop this insane practice within your company walls? If you had said in your resignation that you tried to prevent this but you couldn't, I would be more sympathetic.

Secondly, when you were asked to work for $1 you had a choice. In my opinion you made an honorable choice, but you essentially became a liable volunteer at AIG. With the current mess they are in, you surely must have known what was to come? If the environment is dysfunctional you can do something to fix it, you can moan about it and do thing, or you can leave. I don't fault you for leaving, or feeling used and abused, however with things this bad, did you think that things would be honkey dorey in the office? Why are you whining?

Finally, with the company in the trouble it's in, I know that you had contracts, and I know that it was very weasel-like of your boss to not come and ask for renegotiations, however you (and others) had the option of turning down the bonus, but you did not. I disagree that it's appropriate for the government to hang you out to dry by public embarrassment, but in this economic environment it would make sense to not give bonuses in order to get things back on track.

Bottom line: I still say boo hoo for you. I did not hear you complaining the last 10 years when you were getting compensated as you were.

Maybe you should read Seth Godin's book called Tribes - it may enlighten you :-)