Inside the crisis at AIG
CNN Money | bling

I'm sure you realize that, to most people, $500,000 -- much less the $3.8 million you'll reportedly receive in severance -- seems outrageous for somebody who's high up in a bailed-out company.

I totally understand that. My father was a Boston Irish Catholic cop who probably made $60,000 in his best year. But I've spent my life working myself up a career ladder to where I am, and I had been working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and killing myself. I wasn't tainted with what happened at the company. For someone to say, "I think you're doing a great job, Stasia, but the American people hate you and therefore we think you should make no more than $500,000 a year" -- there's no logic to that. It wasn't something I could live with. I guess that's the Irish in me.