In my current job, this happened recently.
I’m in a team of four people who work in the field performing surveying and collecting geospatial data. We have no tools except for our own cell phones, pens and paper maps.
Coming from an IT/GIS background I quickly developed some apps and other tools we could use in the field. I also showed my bosses how it would massively speed up our production and remove the need for revisits (our bosses often change the metrics for our work on the fly, requiring us to go back out and do it all over again).
My system would have increased productivity 400% by my most conservative estimates. And it would cost a mere $2000 to implement across the whole team.
The chief executive officer made nice noises about it, asked me to draw up a report and cost/benefit study. I did. He later admitted to never reading it. Told me to send it to him again with a request for everything I needed (I needed exactly two things. For him to make a GIS admin inbox account, and for firm finances to pay for the new service).
He ghosted me. Completely. Never heard anything back. Meanwhile there was a major fuck up at the managerial level that not only meant a months worth of work (for four guys) was worthless, but we had to re-do it all in less than a week. My system would have prevented this.
And it did. For me. I redid my work in two days and spent the rest of that week chilling while my coworkers and bosses ran around freaking out.
I keep my tools to myself now. I do about 1/5 of the hard work of my counterparts, but enjoy the full pay. I finish my work early and submit it in the same timeframe as my coworkers. No one knows, and the bosses are apparently fine with it.
My coworkers are aware of my tools and would like to use them – I help them out occasionally, where it won’t impact my own time unduly – but after this last nonsense with the chief executive officer, I just tell them to take it up with him. They won’t, so they’re stuck using paper maps and taking weeks to do days of work.
Sad.