> Nice work — if you can get fired from it.

> That's just what one Alan H. Fishman might have thought when he woke up
> Friday morning.

> Fishman was the new chief executive officer for Washingon Mutual — WaMu —
> the nation's largest savings and loan, which was taken over Thursday night
> by federal bank regulators and quickly dumped in a fire sale to JPMorgan
> Chase for the Wal-Mart-like price of $1.9 billion.

> But don't cry for Fishman, who reportedly was sky-high — literally — last
> night, on a flight from New York to Seattle, when WaMu collapsed. Even
> though he's only been on the job for less than three weeks, he's bailing
> out with parachute worth close to $20 million, according to an executive
> compensation analysis conducted for the New York Times by James F. Reda
> Associates.

> That's right, $20 million for 17 days on the job ... and his company
> failed.

> Fishman, who formerly was chairman of Meridian Capital Group, apparently
> was much coveted by WaMu, which was counting on him to lead the failing
> thrift out of mortgage troubles that pushed the bank to a $3.3 billion
> second-quarter loss.

> According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, WaMu
> threw a $7.5 million bonus at Fishman when it hired him on Sept. 8, and
> guaranteed him an immediate cash severence of $11.6 million — both of
> which he gets to keep.

> He also was eligible for annual bonuses of up to 365 percent of his annual
> base pay — set at $1 million — to go with millions of shares of company
> stock.

> Fishman does lose out on a big bonus that would have kicked in had he
> remained on the job through 2009.

> Documents show WaMu was going to pay their new boss $8 million to simply
> not screw up and get fired — all negotiated as the Seattle-based banking
> giant's loses climbed to an estimated $20 billion.