I do have a story about how many mid-level managers met weekly for months to develop a "more efficient" order-of-tasks for janitors to clean the bathrooms. They claimed the new process would save $100,000 over 3 year (IIRC). Reading the fine print found that they also transition to transparent sandpaper as toilet paper, which accounted for most of their savings.
I never got to ask a janitor, but I'm pretty sure I can guess the respect the idea of a "do these tasks in this order" coming from people that had never done the job would get.
