Turd Polishing

The title of this piece comes from one of my fellow Psych nurses in New Zealand who was labeling something that was a waste of time. My management training called it "non-value added"; my former attorney called it "mental masturbation." Regardless of what you choose to call it, we have all experienced it.
One of my favorite fictional examples of this is a Monty Python skit entitled "Cheese Shop". In the skit, a man enters a cheese shop and asks the clerk for a particular kind of cheese. The clerk responds that they are out of that kind, and what follows is a back and forth of requests for other types of cheese (Stilton, Colby, Venezuelan Beaver Cheese, etc.) answered by a litany of excuses as to why there isn't any (the van broke down, it gets delivered on Tuesdays, the cat ate it, etc.). Exasperated, the customer finally asks if there is any cheese at all in the shop and is told there is "not a scrap; we're deliberately wasting your time."
All of us have probably been involved in situations where we are in the virtual Cheese Shop having our time wasted (at least from our perspective). That being said, one of the life lessons I learned the hard way is that, if some Vice President has an idea, it's a good idea, no matter how silly you may think it is. If you have worked in a large organization, and you are far from the top of the feeding chain, you have probably experieinced some of these "Cheese Shop" moments, although it was probably not safe to point out your views on the situation.
An example of this from one hopital where I worked was the "Leader Greeter" program. The Chief Operating Officer came up with the idea (it was, of course, a good idea) to have managers and administrators "volunteer" to spend a half hour at the entrance to greet people when they entered from the parking garage. For something like this, you would hope that there would be some measurable outcome or other reason for doing it. Even when my cat licks himself between his legs, he has a reason (because he can). For this one, though, I couldn't see any value. If I was one of the people coming in from the parking garage, I would be thinking "Don't you have anything better to do with your time?" Interestingly, after the COO got fired, Leader Greeter apparently died a quiet death.
Unfortunately for you, unless you are near the top of the ladder in your organization, Turd Polishing is likely to be a normal part of your existance. You may not like it, you may not be able to avoid it, but at least you can reconize it for what it is and value it accordingly.