Why is my job like the "Dilbert" comics?

So here I go again, work has actually been ok lately, but it still doesn't stop me from remembering what has happened before.

In this "Dilbert" comic that I read, Dilbert and his boss are having a meeting. His boss tells him that he cannot give him a raise because he asks too many questions, asking questions, says his boss, means that you do not know how to do your job.
Dilbert says he "anticipated" his boss's "misperception and prepared for it".
Dilbert says, "I saved all of my emails and matched them to your policies and procedures," "For example, this is your email saying we need your permission to buy software." "Here's my email asking if I can buy some sortware." "Should I run through the other seven hundred documented examples?"
Dilbert's boss ends by saying, "there you go asking another question".

This comic represents, to me, at my workplace, higher managements inability to unhold policies. I have a great example that just happened to me at work yesterday.

Our policy in the department that I work in is that any bed linens that are over $100 suggested retail price and in departments 90, 91, and 606 must be soft senso-ed. Soft senso's are those white stickers that protect against shoplifters or at least attempt to, but that's another story.

Yesterday, I took this ridiculous return, thank goodness I did not sell it, but it was about $8,000 of merchandise. All the merchandise was from departments 91 and 606; I know that policy when you take this type of return is to re-senso before putting the merchandise back onto the sale's floor. It's important because if we are audited (for following company policies) we can get in trouble for not following those policies.

I looked around everywhere for the stickers to resenso and I could not find any anywhere, I checked registers, the stockroom, the receiving area, and then I asked my boss.

He told me that they would be back in the receiving area, I explained that I already looked there, and he didn't seem to care much so he continued on with his day.

I then found an employee who works back in the receiving area and asked him if he knew where I could find some of the stickers that I was looking for. He helped me to look but was also unsuccessful, and said he would ask his boss. Instead of his female boss having the title of receiving manager, she has the title of distribution manager. Basically, this title makes it more acceptable for her not to do any of the physical labor involved in the job. But that whole thing is another story for another day (or another post).

He apparently asked her (his boss) when one of the senior managers was around. The senior manager wondered why I hadn't asked my boss. How did she know that I didn't? If she would have asked me, she would have known that I did ask my boss and that he didn't know and was of no help to me.

The whole time, all I was trying to do was follow company policies, and management was giving me a hard time when all I was doing was doing the right thing. Imagine, they were giving me a hard time for upholding a policy that they created. I guess at this point, all I am is confused.