Work: Am I Solution Finder or Fault Finder?

The way the question is worded, I would imagine almost everyone would answer that they are a solution finder. Who wants to be just a fault finder (i.e. a professional tattletale)? Of course if I word it that way, no one would ever claim to be one.

For me, I often a solution finder even to the point where I stretch my responsibilities like creating an in-house tool, script, program, wiki, etc. to make my work and sometimes the group. I also feel that I am good at providing a plan to success particularly with my peers. Feeling like a coach at times, I stress about the way things are than the way things are supposed to be. Because of this, many of my peers have stayed a significantly longer than previous employees.

Although I am more positive and enthusiastic, I feel that my value to the company is oftentimes stunted. I seem to fail to convey the importance of my ideas even after I have exemplified the success of smaller ones. Many of what I have worked on still exist at the companies even after 10 years (I stay in touch with many of my former coworkers).

At my current employment, I feel that my enthusiasm to contribute solutions waning each quarter. Either my idea is not within my manager's goals or there is no budget for it. I even offered that I could do it offline. Yet, I keep hearing that management wants new ideas and I still do not see any changes within the last couple quarters. I am becoming quite frustrated in my current employment. Now, I just primarily just keep notes of what I think our group should be doing and recording some information about what works and what does not.

Another source of my aggravation is a coupe of the senior employees (20 more years over me) can only complain. Even some of the solution they come up with are rather weak. My peers and I have oftentimes provided alternate solutions but usually are turned down and forced to work on their plans. Almost every time, we run into all the scenarios that we had mentioned in our initial meetings. Not only that, the story line is twisted to make it seem that it was our fault because we did not push our opinion.

Although I do like to rant at times, I am saying this because this is a more complex example of a fault finder. They do not just find problems here and there, but they know that they should be solution finders so chooses their own so they can get credit for creating a solution. Many of them are also finger pointers which in my opinion is another form of fault finders. 

So am I a solution finder or a fault finder. It seems that I am becoming more of a fault finder but mostly to keep myself sane and feeling trapped from providing a solution. There is only so many no answers that a normal person can bear before just giving up. This is how I feel within my current employment. Outside of that, I relieve my stress by coming up with other solutions. I hope one will someday take a more solid shape.

Anyone have an recommendations how I can get through old-school corporate lifestyles?