I work on the contracting side, so the bulk of my meaningless paperwork is frustratingly related to safety. It should be important, but the whole 'safety' industry has become a self-perpetuating monster that, ironically, has resulted in many taking workplace safety less seriously because of the tedious make-work nature of so many approaches.
The worst is submitting huge (50-100 page) site-specific pre-job hazard assessment and safe work procedure documents, and then getting responses back from teams in these companies where the only concerns are clerical ("your page numbering system is incorrect, please make the cover page 1", "your format for listing emergency contact numbers is incorrect, please use (xxx) xxx-xxxx, not xxx-xxx-xxxx", etc.) and then when arriving at site, it becomes clear that a) nobody outside their safety team has ever read what we submitted, and b) nobody on the client side has any intention of actually following what we spent weeks hashing out in the first place.
Ironically, one of the best employees on the telecommunications side was a guy who managed a relatively large server area where efficiency was measured in millions of dollars per hour. He was the most fastidious guy I've ever met, but that was because he really cared about keeping his systems up and running. He'd done his own (incredibly accurate) CAD drawing of the floors he managed, and made sure we were military precise when planning and executing work in his department. He made us better at what we do. Naturally, as he was also a bit prickly and socially not very smooth (actually sounded a lot like Eeyore and talked very slowly), he was unceremoniously retired against his will as soon as senior management had the opportunity. His replacement didn't have a clue...
