Cash Money Prizes for Bright Ideas

Can I get a dollar for respelling Bogotá?

I am surprised you and the others missed the 2nd. one,

Columbia? Colombia

For you, yes.

Do you mind if I borrow that dollar back so I can afford a keyboard that allows me to hyphenate the letter "a" ?

If you're talking about the accent over the a, go to the menu bar above the reply composition window, pick the Ω symbol, and then pick the special letter or other character you need. (If your browser supports it.)

You can also hold down the alt key and type in 0233 on the numbers pad....é

...or 0225 for á....

When we were in Peru, we tried to use an internet cafe computer, however we found that they don't have a @ symbol on they keyboard. They use something different in the email address - it was a few years ago, so I don't remember - it was something simple and my memory tells me it was a period, but don't quote me on it.

http://howtoperu.com/2010/06/26/how-to-type-on-a-spanish-keyboard-in-peru/

Thanks Solar! GA for you my friend!

Or as a great idea you'd get 100%, if a number of things fall into place... and even if they don't. You'd still get 100%, it'll be nothing, but still 100% of it.

Back around 2008 give or take I did a number of writeups on another forum that deals primarily with electronics regarding how to design and build simple reliable reasonably efficient Grid Tie inverters out of common electrical and electronics components that are available most anywhere in the world.

Reason being at the time a bisce off the shelf GTI unit was pushing the $1 - $2+ per watt price and I wanted to show that a basic unit that could do the same thing could be built for 1/10th the cost or less if a person was good at electronics scrounging.

The aim was to prove that a 200 - 500 watt GTI unit could be built from a old automotive battery charger and ~$20 - $25 in parts from Radio Shack.

As of now the threads relating those designs have amassed over half a million views from people all over the world and have since spawned a whole underground of home brew pirate GTI designs largely based on my work!

Ahhh, Thanks,...

Not any different than the companies (all I ever worked for) that make you sign an agreement when they hire you that any invention you create is theirs and you get a $100 prize for it.

Actually, if your doing it on their dime, yes, your are an employee.

But if the company is on the level, and for the most part, 'MOST' of the companies I worked for was.

At the ship yard, I developed some tooling for manufacturing processes that saved quite a bit of cash, on one project saved about $27,000.00 a hull. We were on the second of a 12 hull contract.

On that, I received a very good dividend, yet on another project prior to that one, I developed a manufacturing process/program that saved flat out over $100,000.00 a hull we were on the 4th hull on a 14 hull project. There I got an 'atta boy'.

Phoenix, sorry, I just saw your post. I agree that if your on their dime, then it's their property.

I also agree that most companies will give an employee a fair "dividend" for money saving ideas. It makes sense, since you're the employee who creates ways to save money, so you're more valuable than an average employee. The best way to retain workers is to overpay them.

Not a problem,...

even on the large savings where I got an atta boy, it didn't bother me, because I knew I was valuable and that's why they hired me... to make them money.

I also had a feeling if it was going to be successful, it was going to be big, to a point that I was even looked at starting my own business. But at the time, I also felt I wasn't ready, and I wasn't.

I also knew where the door was if I felt unjustly betrayed. But I never was.

When I did leave, I put in my 2 week notice, and they refused and instead they wanted to lay me off. I was confused. they told me profit sharing is 6 weeks away, and if I quit, I would surrender that, BUT, if they laid me off, I would get profit sharing for that year.

That was good of them.

I find it interesting that your company didn't accept your resignation and agree to give you some sort of severance pay or bonus.

From an HR point of view, it's easier for a company to accept a resignation - the liability is minimal and the break was initiated by the employee.

When a person is laid off, it puts more risk on the company. The action was initiated by the company, so questions about the lay off justified, was there favoritism, what it payback, etc. come up.

To me, I think it was very nice of the company to do that for you. It just goes to show that valued employees really are valued and appreciated. Sounds like you deserved it!

From an HR point of view, it's easier for a company to accept a resignation - the liability is minimal and the break was initiated by the employee.

That's why I really appreciated it.

There were a number of things going on. One was, I had to keep quiet about the situation, un top of setting a precedence, there would be enough questions why I was getting laid off and not others in the shop. they actually had to bring people back that were laid off. Other items...

1.) I was an hourly employee severance rarely would be paid to an hourly employee

2.) back in the early and mid 90's naval contracts were getting canceled. It was a family run ship yard and no interest to carry on. They had a volunteer layoff, but there was a rush to the gates of highly skilled people leaving, so they stopped that.

3.) The savings on projects that I did and even the work I did was above and beyond, and I didn't expect anything other than a paycheck. I actually really enjoyed my job.

4.) even my education, I took classes on my own I paid for it up front, the shipyard would have reimburse me, but I did not want to be tied to the company. And I felt education is something no one can take away.

When HR found out about that, they said they would cover it, no strings attached just turn in the receipts, I did turned them in on a Thursday, and that next Tuesday, the HR personally gave me a check for the reimbursement. It may not have been a big deal after all, the government gave the city 3 million dollars for retraining, because the yard was winding down (over 1,000 people) and did eventually closed.

There were a number of other issues, that as I did do my work that really PO'd the lifers there which were for the overall best. And I did not dwell on it, but the upper executives took notice.

D'uh?
Presumably they were paying you a regular wage...?
I've just retired from my job as an Electronics Design Engineers. I didn't get paid any bonus for any of my bits of design even the mechanical bits... but I got a reasonable and regular wage with holiday pay etc.
That's the difference.
When giving talks to kids, student etc, I'd always say my job was to have bad ideas...
Because you have to have a lot of bad ones to get to the good ones... and that sums up why some cheapskate only paying for the good ones is a con artist. Anyone falling for it is just gullible.
Del

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

Actually he didn't. His employees dis and he took their credit in the end.

Just ask Tesla

One of the businesses I've owned, I had an employee who wanted to purchase goods my clients brought in as a trade in. He wanted to buy them at my cost, which I wasn't too happy with. I told him that I pay for the rent, advertisement, marketing material, utilities, taxes, supplies, etc to keep the business going. The profit I make from the trade ins must remain in the business. If he wants to buy an item traded in, I told him I could sell it to him at a reasonable profit. We differed on what a reasonable profit was, so the new store policy was created: All trade ins are the property of the business - any employee found purchasing trade ins directly from our clients will be fired on the spot.

The analogy being that businesses put up a lot of money to start it and keep it going. Employees don't always see it that way and many times they feel that the business makes a large profit. So a $100 prize for inventing something may seem like a trivial gesture, but in reality, an employee is receiving a thank you from the company for doing their job. And remember that the company paid the salary of the employee while he was creating the invention.

Just shedding light from a different perspective.

At the every place I ever worked for where customer trade in equipment was standard business the going rate I was always charged was trade in value plus 10 - 15%.

No fuss no excuses about 'what it costs to turn the lights on and flush the toilets' or any of that accounting based BS so many companies use to cover up who terrible they actually are at managing their money or how much money the company owner and his half dozen useless deadbeat kids plus Ex wives were sucking the real financial life out of the business.

Just cover the trade in cost and add 10 - 15% to that. Those were numbers I could always find fair.

That would simplify things - add 10-15% to the trade in value.

In the auto business, 10-15% is excessive. I doubt there's 10-15% profit on the retail end of most transactions. Here's an example: I'm trying to get a trade in on a 2016 Kia Sorrento SXT. I'll probably wind up paying $25,200 for it. It'll need about $600 in reconditioning, so net is $25,800. I'll retail it for $27,995 and maybe settle as low as $27,400 or a $1,600 profit. A 10 - 15% profit from an employee would be really nice, but not realistic.

In the furniture business, used furniture has a 300% mark up many times (sometimes 700% or more), but it sells slowly. It wouldn't be smart to let an employee to cherry pick inventory for a 10- 15% return.

You can use the same argument with buying storage units, antiques, rare collectibles, etc. There are some businesses where high profits exist, because the items move slow, or they require a lot of risk or attention.

I can see that this idea for a thread is shot to hell. Maybe I should have thought through the idea of the post more thoroughly and considered the outside critique criteria.

Maybe cr4 can create a post pre-screening program where potential posters can present ideas for posting to a panel of sorts made up of a group of pre selected panelists, selected by either lottery or essay contest winners.

Once the membership approves of the pre posters posting, then the potential posters posting can be allowed to move to stage II , which would be actual posting on the forum's post.

I'm sure there would be a plethora of volunteers presenting their names for consideration as panelists, although I'm not sure how a selection of a pre panelists panel group would be formed.

You Win!!!

Your prize will be awarded in an undisclosed location near Patagonia, don't be late!

Perhaps if you more carefully defined some problems for us to discuss here, as what you have boldly actually asked on CR4 is <ahem>

"Lets solve everything that is wrong in the world! Who has some ideas?"

Interestingly you are NOT the first person who has done this on CR4, the others got rather stroppy and left when they were asked follow up questions or subjected to some ridicule.

Alternatively you could post some problems and links to company websites for CR4 users to discuss, or contact them directly with their idea proposals.

Coming up with new ideas is what scientists and engineers do extremely well. The hard part is getting small-minded middle management to pass them on to higher levels in their companies who control the finances.

20 to 30 years ago I used the above tool for welding the orange belt. Found it difficult to get the ends properly aligned and was dissatisfied with the results. Had a friend make up a tool of my own design that was much less expensive and had a built in stand making things even easier. Using this made it near impossible to make a flawed weld, in fact, the welds were nearly invisible. When I demonstrated it to my boss he immediately sent me to the company patent attorney, (didn't know we had one in house). The model shop was assigned the task of duplicating my tool to be sent out to every field service rep. While it was written up for a patent management decided not to invest the $$$ to peruse it. After all of these years I see the manufacturer of the belting material is still selling the identical tool. Have to wonder if they would be interested in my design!

I bought one of these about 12 years ago for $2500.00, not they're around $800-900.00

Ouch! My tool was a pair of vice grips with three pieces of steel welded to it, one piece was a stand. Lay the melted ends in the jaws, close, wait about 15 seconds, open and trim sides.

I got spanked pretty dam good on that.

The reason I bought it, it seems that at times you can weld it in one shot. And at other times, you weld it, and to find out it was set crooked or offset, and you end up having to do it a number of times to get it right.

I didn't care for the cutter much.