Packing
Forgot to mention the reason I was at work for 12 hours instead of just 11: had to pack up my cube. No, I'm not losing my job; they're moving my group to a different set of cubes. The one they're moving me to is about 10 feet away from the one I've been in for the past year or so.
You'd think such a move would be easy: I pick up my books and papers, I carry them 10 feet to the new cube, I deposit them in their new places. (I would let the movers carry the computers; even though I'm quite capable of carrying them myself, I can understand why the company doesn't want the insurance risk of letting people carry heavy equipment around.) My moving the books and papers myself might take as long as 20 minutes, so you'd think that'd be the way to do it. But you'd be wrong.
Instead, I had to pack all of my stuff in boxes, and label the boxes. It took over 45 minutes tonight, after a long day. Tomorrow morning, the movers will move all the boxes 10 feet to my new cube. Then I will spend 45 minutes unpacking.
You'd think that a company that's trying to cut costs would be willing to try the radical approach of letting an employee move his own damn books and papers, thereby probably saving over an hour of his time (which is not billed by the hour) and probably half an hour of the movers' time (which probably is). But bureaucracy is powerful. Do not meddle in the affairs of bureaucrats, for they are unsubtle and slow to change.