You work hard, you play by the rules, you do OK and make $100,000 a year. You could be President of the United States of America, responsible for the well being of the free world- and make $400,000 a year.

Or, you could be Bill Nuti and sell off the cream of NCR, the one part that is likely to grow and be the future of the company- and cash in big:

NCR chief made $16.8M last year – Dayton Business Journal:
Bill Nuti, NCR Corp.’s chief executive officer, raked in $16.8 million in total compensation last year, a 141 percent increase from the previous year, according to a company report filed Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nuti collected a base salary of $1 million, the same as the in 2006, but saw a 183 percent increase in his stock rewards related to the spin-off of Teradata Corp. in October. His stock rewards increased to $4.1 million last year, up from $1.46 million in 2006. Nuti’s options rewards jumped 171 percent to $8.75 million in 2007 from $3.23 million in the previous year. Nuti’s total compensation in 2006 was $6.97 million.

Kelly Kramer, spokesperson for NCR (NYSE: NCR), said the large increase in compensation was primarily related to the spin-off of Teradata (NYSE:TDC) and the accounting rules that had to be followed in restating stock and options awards at a higher price.

Kramer said without the accounting rule, Nuti would have seen an increase of less than $2 million in total compensation. Based on that increase, Nuti made almost $7.5 million from the Teradata spin-off.

Of, course, you somehow also plead poverty and can ask for $1.5 million in tax dollar assistance from NYC to take the best jobs away from low cost Dayton and move them to high-rent NYC office space.

To put this crazy compensation in perspective, assuming a 40 hour week, 52 weeks a year, Bill Nuti is making $8076.92 an hour. $323,076 per week.

Now, granted this was a one time payment, but, what he was getting rewarded for, was shrinking his job responsibility and NCR’s growth potential. Short term gain in exchange for long term growth.

Good for Bill Nuti, bad for the company that started over 100 years ago here in Dayton. It’s this kind of short term view, where the emperors of the C-suite are cleaning out the cupboards and laughing all the way to the bank.

Your thoughts?