The State of State eMail

Just read this reply to one of my last mails to a State/Semi-State body:

Dear Mr. ******

Thank you for contacting the Road Safety Authority. Your e-mail will be forwarded to the

appropriate person dealing with this matter and a response will be issued in due course.

Regards
*******
-----Original Message-----

From: *******

Sent: 22 March 2007 07:56

To: Info

Subject: Enquiry_from_Website

Hi there

Why is there only a 'sample chapter' of the new Rules of the Road

available for download? Why not the whole document?

Le gach deá-mhéin
*******

A fairly simple query you’d agree. A fairly simple reply would have been along the lines of: “We will be making the full document available early next week”, or “We are sorry but we have no plans to do so at this time”.

Why do these bodies always reply with “your email will be forwarded … blah, blah, blah”? I get the impression this is Civil Service speak for “look, we’ve answered your mail. That’s the end of. Fek off!” Only once in a blue moon does a follow-up reply actually arrive. My interpretation of in due course is days or at max, a couple of weeks. Theirs seems to be months, years, or seemingly, never.

And why do they have to tell me the email has to be forwarded to the appropriate person? I assume it would be. Just forward the mail to that person and let them reply to me. If you, or they, are not going to reply properly don’t reply at all. Don’t clutter my inbox with trash.

Kildare County Council, I will admit, do actually action emails. Note the use of the word action as opposed to reply to. KCC send the standard Civil Service your email has been forwarded … reply. Usually this mentions the name or at least title of the recipient, and occasionally their email address and phone number. A follow-up mail will arrive within a couple of weeks if they can’t action what you’re requesting. If they can do it, it just gets done, and there is no follow-up.

That works for me. So what’s the snag? Well the replies come as attachments in MS Word format. No messing! It’s true. MS fekin Word. What if I am on a dial-up connection? What if I’m using Linux?

I’d mail the RSA, KCC and other bodies about this but my email would be forwarded to the …

Update: Still no reply, but the full text of the new Rules of the Road booklet is available for download here. No reply either to my mail to them in January asking for clarification on the rules for roundabouts.