This post is part of our feature on Money Winners of 2008. See all 20.

Many of the names on our list of 2008 Money Winners are entertainers, athletes, or businessmen who are on the top of their game. Michael Phelps, Tina Fey, and subprime profiteer Bill Ackman are all examples of this kind of winner. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon has gotten credit as being one of the few executives to keep a large financial institution from feeling too much pain in our current financial meltdown. However, Alan Fishman, who gained notoriety as the last CEO of Washington Mutual, is not any of those kinds of winner.

Instead, he wears his crown as a result of being in the right place at the right time. He replaced longtime WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger during the first week of September of this year. WaMu was seized by federal regulators just three weeks later and the banking assets were sold off to JPMorgan. Thus ended the less-than-spectacular reign of Mr. Fishman.

Fishman was paid just under $20,000 a week before taxes, which is a nice salary if you can get it, but is not nearly enough to land you on our list. However, he also got a massive signing bonus of $7.5M, plus 612,500 shares of WM. Since that stock is worthless now, we will only count the cash. He also had a golden parachute attached to his back and, unless he was fired for cause or voluntarily resigned, he was due to get another $6.15 million. Things get fuzzy when you look at his target annual bonus, which was set at $3.65 million. Since the company disappeared under his watch, I would hope he got none of that bonus, but I can't find any concrete evidence for how that matter turned out. When you total it all out, Mr. Fishman pocketed somewhere between $11 million and $18 million for his three weeks on the job. Wow.

Kevin Rollins, the former CEO of DELL (NASDAQ: DELL) has gotten $48.5 million for stock options he earned while at the company. The odd part about the deal is that, according to The Wall Street Journal, the "cash payment program [will] include expired options." That is, options that he no longer has any rights to.

Such an arrangement is unusual. Normally such payment would be made only for options still owned by a former officer or employee.

Well, it is good to be king, or ex-king anyway. The buyout becomes another in a long line of special treatment given to CEOs who have been pushed out for lack of performance. Dell's earnings faltered under Mr. Rollins and the company ran into accounting problems that are still being investigated by the federal government.

Dell and Mr. Rollins will undoubtedly be criticized for the special deal, but he has his money to keep him warm at night.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.