If you were to come up with a dream employer it would be one that pays you lavish bonuses even when you screw up big time.

Say hello to American International Group, or AIG, a company that is now surviving thanks to taxpayer dollars. Maybe we should all be sending our resumes over there now.

The company paid out multimillion dollar bonuses to employees that ran the very division that destroyed the company, and in many ways our entire economic system.

This from the Associate Press:

AIG has paid $220 million in retention awards to its financial products employees; it distributed $55 million in December and $165 million had to be paid by Friday. Documents provided by AIG to the Treasury Department said the awards ranged from $1,000 to nearly $6.5 million. Seven employees were to receive more than $3 million. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said AIG last week paid bonuses of $1 million or more to 73 employees, including 11 who no longer work there.

You can’t fault the poor inept employees, right? (How bad must of the guy who was awarded only a $1,000 bonus have screwed up?)

This got me wondering about how most of American employees are treated. Most just get their basic wages and benefits, if they’re lucky. In most cases, when they do a poor job they get reprimanded or fired.

That’s how it is out here in the real world. You hear that Edward Liddy, CEO of AIG?

He’s going before Congress today to defend the obscene bonuses paid to these employees.

Many have claimed it’s the only way to keep workers on the job because without the money they’d go over to another company. OK, do the bigwigs at AIG know there’s a recession going on? Where the heck are these workers going to go on Wall Street, or anywhere else in the battered financial markets to get employment. Last I heard, thousands of desperate jobless finance guys were looking for work. I bet there would be a long line of men and women eager to take those AIG jobs for just the salaries and no bonuses.

Hopefully Liddy will read my blog and realize that indeed there’s a huge pool of folks waiting to send him their resumes.

I’ll update this blog today with news from Liddy’s testimony to Congress. Let’s hope it’s not just another dog and pony show where elected officials pound their chests and end up doing nothing.

It’s a strange stand for me to take, I know. I’m usually defending workers in this column. But it’s hard for me to do so in this case.

What’s your take? Did you ever get a bonus for a job not well done?