At her lowest moments, she considered taking what money was left from the initial investment, paying severance to her five employees and packing up.
After an initial hit of $10 million to $20 million in severance costs, the layoffs could bring as much as $100 million in annual savings, according to one estimate.
Disclosure of the scale of the severance further challenged his initial description of the matter as a "witch hunt," as did new descriptions from the woman's friends and colleagues of her level of discomfort at work.
Wednesday's "supplementary note" on the NAO's initial July report said that across 150 severance payments to senior managers in the three years to the end of 2012, the BBC paid "more salary in lieu of notice than it was contractually obliged to in 22 cases, at a total cost of £1.4m".
To the Sports Editor: There is something terribly wrong when the F.B.I. is investigating whether Eric Murdock, the whistle-blower who reported wrongdoing by Rutgers Coach Mike Rice, tried to extort the university, but Tim Pernetti, the athletic director who failed to act in response to Murdock's initial complaints, received at least a $1.25 million severance package when he resigned.
The National Audit Office examined a further 90 severance payments made to corporation executives after its report on an initial study of 60 cases, published earlier this year, showed many staff were paid more than they were entitled to.
Of the legal proceedings affecting Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax during the initial stages of game development, when Bethesda founder Christopher Weaver sued the company for severance pay, Todd Howard said that he, as a producer, wasn't involved with corporate affairs.
Although the details of his severance package will not be known until next spring, it is clear from initial regulatory filings that he will receive awards of stock for the next two or three years.
The fates of all involved hang on whether it can be shown they misled the committee in July when many of them appeared to discuss the initial National Audit Office findings; a hearing during which Patten described his "shock and dismay" over the severance payments.
Meanwhile, the pretax cost of the initial phase of the cost-cutting program is expected to range from $3.5 billion to $4.3 billion, much of it in severance packages for employees.
