How spooky.
I still think it’s weird that a company would hire someone, then not provide any work for them to do. I don’t disbelieve it, just think it’s very weird.
OOH! I have an idea!
When you leave work, forward your desk phone to your home (or cell) phone.
Don’t come in to work anymore.
See if anybody notices.
See if you still get a paycheck.
If anybody calls, tell them you’re "on the other side of the office doing [something] and you can be there in [your normal commute time].
Alternatively, you can hang out at the coffee shop or whatever is near your job. Same response to phonecalls.
About a dozen years ago, my husband went to work for a company which I affectionately dubbed “the Mafia Money Laundering Company”
I gave it this name because I could see no other possible reason for its existence.
It was a software company. They were supposed to be working on a particular project. Only the contract with the client hadn’t been entirely sorted out. Nevertheless, a number of programmers had already been employed. Most of them (including my husband) were contractors. They couldn’t do any work until the agreement with the client had been finalized. This was known by their employers. The employers used to wander through the office every so often to say things like “it’ll all be sorted out soon” and “yeah, we know we haven’t given you any actual work to do but could you, um, just do professional development or something rather than play Doom all day?”
My husband offered to let them out of their contract with him, so they could save his inflated contractors salary and he could get a real job actually doing something. They declined. Incidentally, they had hired him through a contracting firm who was hiring him through another contracting firm, who was the one who was actually paying him. So the company was paying him about two and a half times what he was getting, which was already lots. Many of the other contractors in the company were in the same situation.
The company eventually went bust. I guess the mafia had laundered all the money they needed to by that time.
Is it a front?
Yeah this is a great idea. Take some online courses that you can put on your resume. Get Rosetta Stone and learn a language.
Yuck. I’ve been in your situation and it really does suck.
First off, I don’t deal with boredom well. As mentioned, you spend 8+ hours in the office. There’s only so much Web surfing can keep you entertained! Frankly, I like feeling like I’ve contributed to the company.
Secondly, it’s scary. Like you, my situation was caused by a manager who just couldn’t delegate. So I sat around waiting for someone to discover that I wasn’t doing anything and show me the door.
Finally, I have little patience for stupidity. And paying me to sit there twiddling my thumbs was just stupid.
Find another job. I was lucky in that the economy was different when I was in job hell. But the good news is that you have a job now so there’s not as much of a rush. You have time to figure out what you want and be selective about where you go.
In my case, at my last job, I think it was a case of the higher-ups not realizing just how little time it took to do the work I was actually assigned. And believe me, I tried getting work to do from people, and pick up things from people that had too much on their plates, but it still only got me so far.
Well I know who’s not making partner this decade. 
I vote that he should write poetry.
I thought they did. Turned out it accidently dropped into my laptop bag.
Actually it’s much easier than that. I can just telecomute from home. No one uses the phone around here, it’s all email and IM. And we work out of 2 different offices and everyone is always back and forth. Unless I’m physically presenting something, I can probably just teleconference in and say “I had another meeting in the other office and can’t get there in time.” Really I could go for months like that.
It was even easier to do that when I worked in consulting and had a Blackberry. My managing director calls me up one time and is like “Is soandso around.” I’m like “I don’t know, I’m working from home.” He seems kind of surprised and I’m like “why do you care? You’re in London and I’m in New York.”
Truthfully, I would get just as bored sitting around my appartment pretending to work.
It’s a Fortune 500 financial services company. So…yeah…probably.
Yes, but it’s so much more fun to be bored in ratty boxer shorts and a wife-beater.
Definitely money-laundering, though you’d think that money-laundering would have more work for you to do. 
Really Not All That Bright No way, I’d rather be bored for six figures in a suit.
Well, a couple of things:
I don’t define myself and my values through my job (which I don’t find very important). I define myself through my professionalism and ambition which transcends whatever lame job I happen to be stuck in at any given time.
Second, I have not been shifted anywhere. It’s my bosses who have left the company. All the Directors and VPs above me in my group have either quit, been forced out or retired within the past year.
Third, the entire building is “remote”. We are all scattered about pretty uniformly with about 1 person for every 6 cubicles or offices. That’s actually the reason for the construction. They are eventually going to consolidate us all together so we don’t go insane and start painting faces on volleyballs for companionship.
Fourth, it’s not that I’m not given assignments. I am. Just not at the crazy rapid hey this just came in at 5:15 on Friday and needs to be done right now kind of pace I was used to. As a manager I’m involved in all the planning meetings appropriate for my level. It’s just that, well, we just sit around talking without doinging anything. So I guess the management comic stereotype is accurate after all.
Fifth, it’s not a partnership, it’s a corporation. I think the only way I’m getting promoted this century is if my boss dies or quits (which given history is likely, but also equally likely they will just hire an outside replacement again).
And finally, believe it or not, I can actually be quite charming IRL. But yes, I am aware that I can sound a bit condescending or sarcastic so it is something I try to manage at work.
But there is definitely a big cultural difference between me and the rest of the people in my group. Quite frakly, being brash and arrogant works and is almost required in a fancy-pants management consulting firm. Not so much in one of these big Dilbert corporations.
Also, I’m pretty much one of the few men in a group of mostly women in their late 30s / 40s. So I imagine a lot of you will find a certain ironic justice in that.
Especially since they would certainly be able to use my fraud detection and anti-money laundering skills for evil as well as good.
Well could it be possible that your department exists so that it can provide legitimacy to the paperwork in case of audits?
Actually that sort of is what we do in a way. We are kind of where compliance, technolgy, legal and other processes all come together to protect the company. We do actual work, it’s just that with the culture of the company it’s sort of like herding snails.
My first two jobs out of college were like that, and it was awful.
Now I’m in a job where we’re insanely busy Monday and Tuesday with a hard deadline Wednesday morning (so the work has to be done before anyone leaves on Tuesday). Wednesday tends to be ok busy - busy enough to not get bored. Then Thursday and Friday often drag. I daydream about asking if I could go part time and work Mon-Wed only. Why come in for 2 days when I’m not needed?
I suppose it would be too ridiculous to suggest using Thursday and Friday to get a headstart on the coming Monday and Tuesday.
That depends on the nature of the work. I’ve had jobs where there is a lot of processing that gets done early in the week - but by the end of the week the work just isn’t arriving over your desk. Then it starts again on Monday.
I had a friend who used to work in a mailroom for a really big company (I bet mail rooms are a lot smaller now than they were twenty five years ago). Monday was hell as you had all the Saturday mail, plus all the Monday mail - you really wouldn’t get caught up until Tuesday, when the mail started arriving the other direction. But Fridays were a screw off day - few people sent anything down to the mail room on Friday to get sent out - they never scheduled big mails for Fridays, and you only had the regular mail to get sent out.
I could totally work the OP’s job no sweat. I would spend all day reading and collecting a paycheck, while also using company time to send out resumes if I was really that unhappy.
Naps, books, a bloated salary and unfettered internet access while being utterly alone would be a dream job for me. Seriously.
Please trade jobs with me. At least the monotony of your job affords you to read to your hearts content.