So in the 80s I worked at IBM, and they had an interesting policy. If you made an official suggestion that they adopted and saved money for IBM you received som

So in the 80s I worked at IBM, and they had an interesting policy. If you made an official suggestion that they adopted and saved money for IBM you received some percentage of the first years savings (5% if I recall). People could make $2000 for just a small improvement of the packing box for a product. When bar codes were first invented, a fellow engineer suggested that IBM employ them for inventory purposes, which of course they did, eventually. Unfortunately for him it was just past the expiration date for the suggestion award. It would have been quite a windfall.