OFII interview?

@hbataille. Um, hire a baby-sitter? Very few government offices in any country in the world are going to make an effort to accommodate someone's childcare situation or busy family life.

    Hello,
I got a notice for a welcome interview at the OFII office in Toulouse.  The problem is, they require I come in on a Wednesday and (as the should know) as a mom with 5 kids who are all home on Wednesday this is the worste possibe time for me.  We have activities all over, and only 1 car.  Even if we cancelled everything, briging all 5 kids in for an interview downtown is ridiculous.  I have called numerous times and left serveral messages trying to reschedule, but no response.  The interview is wednesday...I find it incredible we can't contact anyone to change dates. What if a child is sick that day?  What if our car breaks down, which it did recently?  What happens if I just don't show up?
   

    -@hbataille

Why have you posted this twice?

But having kids is no excuse, hire a babysitter!!

It's not that having kids keeps me from going, it coud be any number of things.  The point is, they make themselves completely un-contactable.  So what if something happens and you don't show up?  That is my question.

@hbataille OK, now your question makes more sense. I think you perhaps did what I often do online and in e-mail: provide a whole lot of explanatory information relevant to, but not essential to, your question, with the result that people respond not to your key question, but rather to the situation that has prompted it.

So, in this case, maybe it would work better to ask, "I've been given an appointment with the OFII. It looks like I may need to ask for a different time slot. What is the best way to do this? I've written to them by e-mail, but I'm not getting a response."

Like you, I often go into all the reasons behind asking something, with the result that people engage with me on those things -- sometimes even getting a bit prickly in doing so -- rather than helping me get an answer to my main question.

(In your defense, if you've got five kids, you may not spend a lot of time in efficient business communication but, instead, have to keep everything relatively sane in your home. Keep up the good work!)