Re: Meh
You'd still better address [French] civil servants with "August Sir, loyal and righteous, whose benevolence is majestically manifest, may you in your magnanimity excuse the lowly worm I am for insulting your eyes and ears with my presence." if you don't want to star in a Kafka novel.
This is in contrast to the way in which certain people, wishing to make a point, address British civil servants:
"You, sir, remain my most humble and obedient servant,
Blimp, Col. (Retd)"
I was particularly taken by a method recommended by the late Willie Rushton for dealing with tax offices. He actually did two things:
1) He would send letters with a reference number on them that apparently increased by one every time he sent a letter. He would then occasionally jump a number, then refer to the non-existent letter in subsequent letters e.g. I answered your question fully in letter 'x'.
2) It was possible to choose which tax-office dealt with your affairs, and you could change which office this was. He would opt to move the handling of his affairs to a new office, then get the offices to contact each other looking for lost paperwork.
It was his way of getting back at 'the man'. He was quite the subversive in his way.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
