Thread regarding Ford layoffs

Just think of all the money we will make selling water consumption data to Chewy !

when i saw the title, for some reason i imagined a fish bowl with gold fish swimming in it. huh. sounds about par for the course in dearborn kooky inventions these days. oh, it's a dog bowl! yes! well, one of you guys can go ahead and take the patent for my fish bowl idea anyway, i'm all right with that.

I would not trust that Ford would not fill the pet bowl with engine coolant instead of water, thus ki----g the dog via standard Ford incompetence.

@1pgq got it right about the patent game. 20 years ago a woman in her 40s got hired into a software engineering role on my team. It became clear quickly that she knew nothing and had zero aptitude and that her resume was a total work of fiction. The supervisor tried to find something she could do, but other than taking meeting minutes there was nothing. She tried to insert herself as a “work wife”, bringing treats, coordinating lunches, etc. but since there was already a women performing that role, cat fights ensued. She started applying to every open position, and somehow landed a software engineer role in embedded systems, where she remains to this day.
Oh the kicker, she is co-author on an S-ton of patents. So that tells you how valuable a patent is. The whole game is to throw a bunch of patent applications into the hopper, you get rewarded for the application and additional reward on acceptance.
Go Ford!

This is just one example of the hundreds of patents Ford files but never puts into production. The real issue here gets back to fair pay and our innovation incentive system. If engineers were paid a decent wage, perhaps they'd do their day jobs and focus on producing quality parts. Since they aren't fairly compensated, they look for supplemental opportunities, such as coming up with as many innovative and patentable ideas as possible. The more patent filings, the better, as that translates to monetary awards.

What needs to happen is a revamping of the patent incentive system. Instead of incentivizing tbese crazy ideas, you should only receive a monetary kickback if your patent goes into production. People are spending too much time patenting ideas "because they can" and not enough time on their real jibs.

This is America where we don’t eat dogs, they are family members. I see you’ve never had a dog. I am finally happy to see Ford actually being creative with customer features, well granted Ford copies the dog climate control off Tesla, but the dog bowl thing is new.

It’s just a 🤡 show.

WTH?
There already exists water bowls whose lid opens and closes when dog collar is within drinking distance, same with food bowl.

But seriously since when are eyeballs and common sense not enough to fill and remove a water bowl? And who leaves water in a bowl while driving? And what responsible pet owner would trust Ford technology to keep their pet cool in a hot suv?

This is great! Especially since you have to pay a $15 monthly subscription to use said pet bowl! With all of the people buying this great subscription service, the company will be saved! Hallelujah!