Saw another oddity of the defense industry:  when a government employee comes on site and is fed lunch there is a little bowl marked something like “Contributions Welcome” where the gov guy is supposed to pay what he thinks the meal is worth.  This is due to the concept that we can’t bribe our project sponsor.

I guess they play the game, but there is no definition on the cost of the meal.  So, it is up to the discretion of the gov employee to put something in the pot.  This can be anything from a nickel to a few bucks, depending on what spare change the guy has in his pocket.

Isn’t it nice we are following such well thought out rules.  I’m sure some accountant is actually keeping track of how much is put into the pot on these things so we can ‘prove’ that we didn’t provide a free lunch, aka bribe.