My bosses will thumb through a phone book for 10 minutes looking for a phone number while sitting at the computer. When I catch on to what they are doing I'll ask them what the are looking for and I'll find the number instantly with google.
i stopped doing that after a few times, it was just pointless because they treated my findings like some sort of weird voodoo and would still have to verify the info
I haven't had that problem.
The one thing that pisses me off worse is when they ask me where a work order is and I tell them. They will start rummaging through the stack of papers and then claim it isn't there and they will go out in the shop looking for it. I'll look through the papers while they are out there and usually it is 2 or 3 pages from the front in the stack they "looked" through. Both of them have done this a bunch.