Before you leave the 'burbs for this $220K job, make 1 call

While I wait for my son's piano lesson to wind down, I thumb through the "help wanted" section of the weekly paper.

It's not as if I expect to find an advertisement reading, "Wanted: Newspaper columnist to write three whole columns a week giving readers the perspective of a middle-aged, white, suburban dad. High salary, generous perks, Cubs tickets and a legman included. Curmudgeonly manner a plus."

It's just that I always think there might be a column hiding among the agate type.

I wade through all those ads seeking dancers/models who want to make $500+ a day, ignore anything having to do with accounting or automobiles, and shun the mysterious ones that say you can make a lot of money from home selling something they don't mention in the ad.

I read the personal ads, too, although I am not interested unless I see an ad reading, "Outgoing, attractive water-proofer seeks soggy basement for free sealing encounter."

I think the ad asking "Mary Ann" or "Charles James" to call a phone number in Bullhead City, Ariz., "regarding your father" has potential as column fodder. But first, I've got to find about this one:

"COUNTERASSAULT TRAINING! Protect overseas subcontractors. Earn $220 K/year possible! 80 percent tax exemption!"

My first thought is that this is the sort of job where you get to meet Dick Cheney before you end up on a "Death to America" Web site begging forgiveness for having toiled in the name of the Great Satan. I also suspect that maybe $220 K doesn't mean what we think it does, and is actually short for 220 Kwacha, the official Zambian currency, which, even though it is the equivalent of 22,000 Ngwee, is worth only 39 cents in U.S. coins.

Even if the job pays $220,000, the training might be a bit much for many of us suburbanites. To pass an "endurance run," applicants are supposed to don a 9-pound flak jacket, wear a holster with pistol, carry a training rifle, run a half-mile, climb a 20-foot ladder while carrying a gun, crawl through a 15-foot tunnel, carry a 30-pound ammo case up and down stairs, drag or carry a 185-pound dummy 20 feet, jump 3 feet and then fire a 9 mm handgun four (I'm guessing my tired, white-collar, mouse-clicking finger would be bushed after three) times.

Classroom titles include topics such as "Reloading Drills _ day and night," "Principles of Dynamic Entry" (I'm guessing the dynamic entry they are talking about has nothing to do with a natty pocket kerchief), "Defensive Driving" and "Sniper Training." The accompanying photos show cars rounding corners on two wheels, lots of guns and some guys in suits apparently guarding the pope.

I'm thinking it might be fun to get the keys to the Popemobile. But before I leave the newspaper biz for this more lucrative career, I make one phone call - to the Better Business Bureau at (312) 832-0500.

"Ads listing the availability of hundreds of jobs at good salaries often are ads placed by job-listing companies, not by employers themselves," warns Steve J. Bernas, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois. "Such companies charge consumers upfront fees for a list of jobs reported to be currently available. Job-listing fees do not guarantee you will get a job."

In fact, the company in question runs ads all across the nation that are "deceptive and misleading," according to an investigative report on www.bbb.org. Many consumers have complained the company did not make good on the training jobs as advertised.

Knowing that people desperate for jobs in this economy might be prey for hucksters, the Better Business Bureau offers tips and recommendations on its Web site, with the most important caution being the adage that "if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

That works for column topics, and even for personal ads.

So if "Mary Ann" or "Charles James" see this column and want to call that phone number in Bullhead City, Ariz., "regarding your father," I need to give you a warning: Don't get your hopes up.