A Meek Ending For Mighty Unit That Gutted AIG

"In a situation like this, it's hard to keep everybody on task, motivated, focused. People know they are going to be out of jobs," Pasciucco said. "So they are constantly doing that calculus in their heads, as to what's left in terms of what I get paid here? What can I get paid in a new career? When should I start my new career?"

For the better part of two decades, Financial Products had been a place where workers raked in princely sums, even by Wall Street standards.

Since the collapse, many Financial Products employees have lost nearly two-thirds of their compensation under the firm's deferred payment plan, in which bonuses are doled out over several years based on the firm's profitability.

"It's like the stock going to zero," Pasciucco said. "It's been wiped out."

Still, employees who stick around are eligible for hundreds of millions of dollars in retention payments -- half next month and the rest in March 2010 -- a practice that has roiled some members of Congress and further stoked public anger. Executives say the payments are justified because few people possess the expertise to handle the mind-bending transactions at Financial Products.

Haas, the Financial Products veteran, said no one at the firm is looking for sympathy. "The whole world hurts right now," he said. But he said the vast majority of current employees had no role in the problems that wrecked the firm, and many feel a measure of shame and guilt for how its troubles spread to AIG and helped poison the economy.

"People have great pride in this organization. Everyone is horrified at what happened," he said, adding they are determined to close down the firm with dignity and professionalism. "There's a duty. We owe it to AIG. And now we owe it to the government and the taxpayer."

These days, Haas avoids telling people where he works. But he and the others who remain still show up each week at the office park off Danbury Road. They keep framed pictures of smiling children on their desks. Letizia's Pizza in Norwalk still delivers each night to those who stay late, chipping away at the pieces of Financial Products until it is finally gone.

"The great irony in it," Haas says, "is the better job we do, the sooner we'll be out of a job."