Everyone is distancing themselves from the voluntary redundancy package of more than £230,000 to a senior Welsh government official.
It's an acknowledgement of how toxic such a payment is at a time of austerity.
Usually with a story about redundancy payments, the body responsible refers to the savings that will be made in the future.
The difference this time was that the Welsh government made it abundantly clear early on that it wasn't happy with the payment either.
It said efforts were made to get control of the terms and conditions of senior civil servants' pay devolved in order to avoid excessive redundancy payments.
"Totally unacceptable"
But that failed and so it was left with a system it didn't like but couldn't control.
The UK Civil Service Compensation Scheme entitles officials to a month's salary for every year they've worked up to a maximum of 21 months.
The UK government cabinet office has described the payment as "totally unacceptable" in recognition of George Osborne's plans to limit so-called golden goodbyes in the public sector to £95,000.
The Welsh Conservatives, who were responsible for bringing the £230,000 figure into the public domain, are trying to build a narrative that Labour is sloppy with the public finances as we head into the assembly elections.
So no-one is taking the blame or is happy with the situation, other than the official in question presumably.
Tricky territory
Redundancy packages like this have proved to be tricky territory for all sorts of public bodies, including the BBC, and a source of resentment particularly in local government circles who believe that central government enjoy far more generous terms and conditions.
With major council re-organisation seeming to have a degree of inevitability about it, this will become a major issue.
The Welsh government will be under pressure to limit the cost of any change, and that will mean imposing limits to redundancy packages.
Stories like this one will make it increasingly difficult to do that when council officials say that terms and conditions are being imposed on them which have not been experienced in central government.
In other words, different rules for different parts of the public sector.
