These local Diets were the only form of representative government which existed in the rural districts; they had little power, but their opinion was asked on new projects of law, and they were officially regarded as an efficient substitute for a common Prussian Parliament.

Many of his friends, including his brother, urged him again to enter the public service, for which they considered he was especially adapted; he might have had the post of Royal Commissioner for Improvements in East Prussia.
He did make one attempt to resume his official career.

At the beginning of 1844 he returned to Potsdam and took up his duties as Referendar, but not for long; he seems to have quarrelled with his superior.

The story is that he called one day to ask for leave of absence; his chief kept him waiting an hour in the anteroom, and when he was admitted asked him curtly, "What do you want ?" Bismarck at once answered, "I came to ask for leave of absence, but now I wish for permission to send in my resignation." He was clearly deficient in that subservience and ready obedience to authority which was the best passport to promotion in the Civil Service; there was in his disposition already a certain truculence and impatience.

From this time he nourished a bitter hatred of the Prussian bureaucracy.
This did not, however, prevent him carrying out his public duties as a landed proprietor.