Putting out an A.P.B. That’s

August 28, 2002

Putting out an A.P.B. That’s what you have to do in this age where so many communication channels are open. It never matters how much you send out. It only matters how much someone on the other end wants to hear. The APB can be done in any sequence based on the tone you want to set.
A little over ten years ago people usually had a single telephone in their homes. If you wanted to get hold of them you called it. If they didn’t answer you might have left a message. Answering machines were a relatively new thing. People got all excited about composing their outgoing messages. How passé’. You could leave a message with someone else in the home and they would write it down on a piece of paper? Now you must put out the APB over at least three but as many as six channels. Your options are e-mail, the lowly fax, internet pager, pager, cellular phone, home line, and business line. All of these options provide the receiver with any number of cloaking devices. Answering machines, voice mail, and believable assistants who provide alibis. Short of serving someone papers through the sheriff's office you must spend the time to make three calls and type out two messages via the computer to even raise the eyebrow of some bunker dwellers. The bunker dwellers set the tone for communication with all others. People have become so frustrated that they start their APB in the most aggressive spot. ALWAYS THE CELLPHONE FIRST. If you want to come in low and slow you start with a gentle e-mail or a pleasant message on the business line. Having a cell on you makes others see it the possibility of instant connection. That possibility is, indeed, faint. Not only can they be turned off and screened . . .they don’t work worth a load of snot in a hanky. Since I got mine I feel like I’m playing army with my friends. “Maybe the two way radio will work Jim. When we get out in the open past the firing line lets see if we can get a connection.” “Sarge I have a connection to base camp they say the enemy is breathing down our . . .oh shit . . . I’ve lost them”.
My little crystal two way radio decides to work and cut people off seemingly at random. This can only be correlated with the importance of the call. If I have APB’d someone for days (and they are finally getting back to me about something important) they will call the cell. I will hear them say their name in that broken digital rasp. I will shout down the ridiculous little toy phone, “can you hear me?”. They will say, “_es I _an _ere _ou”. Then it just goes as silent as a stone. At that point you feel even more idiotic holding that little rectangular stone to your cheek. Its fun to throw stones into water. I had a pager. I thought that was a great idea. I might go back. I heard someone say they hated that extra step of calling and waiting or receiving then calling. I had it for family and business emergencies and it didn’t work outside my home area. Sweet relief.
I think people base the urgency of the incoming communication on the level of APB. A “red level APB” is where all machines are full of the same message with growing degrees of impatience in the tone. The e-mail is nice. The business line is straightforward. The home line is casual yet pressing. The cell phone is urgent. The fax is large swear words written in Sharpie. A “green level” APB is pleasant on all channels with identical messages only modified by at least two apologies for leaving the same message again. The “green level” is doubled up with a “red level” eventually. The sequence of calls is important to the classification as well. Five cell phone messages with nothing on the other lines can speak volumes about the personality profile of the caller. Some just try two e-mails in a row and don’t use the phone. These may be cries for help rather than APBs.
Here I must claim guilt. I can be hard to get to sometimes. With a full slate of family and music responsibilities I can fall back into the bunker every once in awhile. Travel compounds the simple “busy” factors and then I can really frustrate people. I can’t find any space to create without staying up later than everyone else and then getting up with them in the morning. Sooner or later I skid to a stop using my face for brakes. Sometimes I’ll try to get in some daytime work and that means maybe getting two “green level” APBs and one “red”. I’m learning to live with it. Its the golden rule.