The consultancy found businesses' own rules and procedures were costing $155 billion a year in development and compliance, on top of $94 billion a year spent on administering and complying with government regulations.

From mining to airlines to the public service, there were horror stories aplenty from readers bow-legged under the weight of internal pen-pushing and bumbledom.

Julian, from Sydney, was volunteering for a NSW heritage organisation when he made the mistake of offering to go out and buy snacks for a group of colleagues.

"The pantomime we had to go through to get the $50 cash necessary was staggering - fill in a form, give it to someone, she goes off to finance, comes back with cash, more paperwork as she hands over the money," he wrote.

"Took as long as the actual shopping!"

An employee at the ABC said the public broadcaster recently embraced open plan offices, giving staff the unbridled joy of standing desks. But it turns out standing desks should not always be used for, well, standing.

"Best practice, we were informed through OHS, is half an hour standing, half an hour seating," the ABC staffer told Fairfax Media. "But you have to wind them up! They take five minutes to go from down to up. Productivity takes a hit and OHS warn us we're winding the cranks up wrong and are at risk of tearing rotator cuffs!"

One reader reported he was currently "working" on a large iron ore project but "getting nowhere fast". In one incident, his team needed to move a small compressor about 150 metres across flat terrain but were not allowed to push it. Nor were they permitted to tow it using a nearby ute. Despite having more than 20 years of driving experience, they had not yet completed the official "driver training".

"In my first 28-day swing I literally did about four days' work due to lack of parts or lack of minor compliance training," the reader wrote.

Another reader, Ryan, said he worked for one of the nation's "most favoured" employers. But that did not stop bureaucrats unleashing a deluge of correspondence and paperwork upon their long-suffering staff.

"In the last week, I received two documents, one 252 pages another 85 pages, that must be read during my days off," he said. He also received an email with detailed instructions on how to securely enter and exit the building.

"Of course, the attachment won't open and that means more time wasted talking to IT to get this sorted out."

In an apt example of procedural excess, the Deloitte report cites an aviation company which had strict controls over how - and importantly, where - staff could access its inventory of small parts. According to Deloitte, maintenance workers spent up to four hours a day walking 15.5km back and forth to collect parts. A review introduced a standard cart of materials and mobile electronic ordering devices, reducing walking time by 75 per cent.

The report also references an unnamed large organisation that sought to reduce project overruns. Subsequently, more than 200 "steps and handoffs" were introduced to the approval process. As it transpired, the costs of going through the lengthier approval process exceeded the budget overruns the company had been trying to prevent. Only when the process was simplified did the firm improve its efficiency and bottom line.

Commenting on the report, Treasurer Joe Hockey recalled his own encounter with bureaucratic madness, taking umbrage at council regulations that ruined his outing to a local pizza shop. Mr Hockey "exploded" when informed he was not allowed to push two alfresco tables together or bring an eighth chair outside.

One reader was moved to quote sci-fi writer and essayist Jerry Pournelle's "Iron Law of Bureaucracy", which decrees: "In any bureaucratic organisation there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organisation, and those who work for the organisation itself. In all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organisation, and will always write the rules under which the organisation functions."