15 wacky jobs that actually pay really well You’ve grown to learn that different isn’t always good, but did you ever think it could be profitable?

Your mother always said that you were different. That’s why she never let you play with the other kids, or let you stay out past 9 PM until you were 20, and because of that you may have become a socially awkward and emotionally crippled mess. You’ve grown to learn that different isn’t always good, but did you ever think it could be profitable?

So let’s get right into it (just in time for recession).

Professional Line Sitter

Salary: $80,000

Have you ever stood in line for an iPhone launch, a Supreme drop, or even a cronut? No? That’s because someone else probably did it for you, and they got paid very well to do so. Welcome to the world of professional line sitting, where patience isn’t just a virtue, it’s a direct deposit.

These people stake out sidewalks for hours (sometimes days) for product releases, event tickets, or bureaucratic nonsense like passport renewals. In cities like New York or D.C., they can charge anywhere from $20 to $100 an hour, depending on the urgency and level of human dignity you’re willing to sacrifice for your client.

Caveats

You are literally standing around for a living. It’s like being unemployed, except more lucrative and with more back pain. There’s also the existential horror of realizing your job is essentially being a meat placeholder. But if sitting (standing) through a 12-hour queue while destroying your neck staring at your phone sounds like your thing, this might be your ticket to the upper crust of the lower rung.

Porta-Potty Business Owner

Salary: $100,000 to millions

If you’ve been to any major public event ever, you’ll notice that there are usually porta-potties placed strategically around the venue. This is no coincidence, nor is this magic: entrepreneurs know what people want, and in this case, entrepreneurs know that people sometimes have to shit really badly.

While you were crapping your lungs out after 15 chili dogs and a side of jalapeno nachos, these porta-potty CEOs were raking in fat, fat cash: up to $100,000 a year. You can laugh at that, but when’s the last time you made 6 figures from your “shitty” (heh) job?

You can also easily expand your event rental offerings to include things like tents and wedding arches.

Caveats

So, what are the dangers involved with this job? Poop-invoked vomiting inside, just the social stigma. Sure, being a CEO of a company that moves poop around may be funny to your friends, but what of the rest of the world? Will girls really want to date the CEO of Poop Scoopers, Inc. versus a Goldman-Sachs senior analyst? The job’s a little weird, but you’ll be fine as long as you don’t travel back in time to pre-colonial India (jobs that dealt with poop were relegated to the lowest caste).

Pet Food Taster

Salary: $90,000

Companies like Nestlé Purina, Mars Petcare, Blue Buffalo, et al employ taste testers (usually from food science, nutrition, or quality assurance backgrounds) to assess texture, flavor, and quality of pet food products. The purpose isn’t just to see if it’s palatable for humans (though that happens), but also to ensure it meets standards for smell, consistency, and safety. It’s usually a small spoonful, and often only if the food is “human-grade” (i.e., made from ingredients legally allowed in human food). It’s not a full dinner plate of Alpo.

Still gross? Sure. But very real. And the reason it’s a real job is that Rover doesn’t exactly fill out customer satisfaction surveys, and someone’s got to make sure that salmon-lamb blend isn’t just wet cardboard in disguise.

Caveats

You will get questions at parties. Lots of them. You’ll also develop an unfortunate talent for identifying specific cuts of meat by smell alone, often while blindfolded and gagging. Dating is tricky, unless your partner is either very understanding or also eats kibble recreationally.

Dog Surfing Instructor

Salary: $60,000

You’ve heard of surfing schools for humans, but now there’s a surf school for your dog. As a dog surfing instructor, you’ll train dogs (and their owners) how to catch waves. The job involves teaching pups how to ride on boards, often at beaches in places like California, Hawaii, or Australia.

For every adorable dog you help surf, you get paid to hang out by the beach, throw a frisbee, and impart wisdom to the furry masses. It’s like a doggie daycare, but with more splash and less poop.

Caveats

Not all dogs are natural surfers. You may spend hours trying to teach a pug how to balance on a surfboard while simultaneously trying to keep your own balance on dry land. The job is also physically demanding, as you’ll need to be in the water with the dogs.

Crime Scene Cleaner

Salary: $80,000

People love shows like CSI, NCIS, and Monk, probably because they have some sick justice fantasy. Anyway, it’s always really cool to see how real-life detectives work. Who knew that your man juice turns blue under a blacklight?

But what happens after the investigators leave? What happens to the splattered brains, severed limbs, and random chunks of people? All the glory and spunk of guys like Sherlock Holmes and Leroy Jethro Gibbs vanishes, and all that’s left is what used to be a human being. That’s where crime scene cleaners come in. Like extreme housemaids, they tidy everything up so that there isn’t a dead body on Main St. for the rest of eternity. They mop up the blood and gore, sweep up everything that doesn’t count as evidence, and clean up possible health hazards (toxic chemicals, gasoline, your mom et cetera).

Caveats

Wow, that’s really damn disgusting. But it might just be worth it: expect to make $100-$600/hr ($35K/yr that turns into $80K after a few promotions) in this business for all the crime scenes you clean up (and let’s face it, there is no shortage of murder in today’s world). However, most of the time you’ll probably be on call because criminals do whatever they want, when they want. You might have an irregular sleep schedule, which might affect your social and family life. But that’ll be the least of your worries. You won’t sleep anyway because of all the nightmares.

Airplane Repo Man

Salary: $10,000 to $900,000

So, did you make too much money in World of Warcraft and buy yourself 3 tons of potato chips, a gold toilet, and an airplane? Falling behind on payments because your poor ass never learned how credit works? Fear not, the airplane repo man is here! (Just kidding, you might as well kiss that sweet Cessna goodbye)

Airplane repossession is a recently developed industry that arose after the decline of commercial airline flight due to 9/11 as well as the 2008 US economic recession. Basically, airplane repo men track down airplanes that haven’t been paid for on time, commandeer them (like bank-employed James Bonds), and fly them away to be auctioned off.

Caveats

Sound fun? Sound easy? Guess again. Airplane repo men, like all repo men, face many dangers and challenges, and have to work on a very dynamic schedule. They have to actually chase these planes down while they are still in use, deal with angry clients, and then fly the planes back, often solo. And these angry clients are not just miffed, they’re angry: One repo man report being chased through a hangar by a lady with a huge rake, being hunted by African warlords, and even being imprisoned for just doing his job. Not fun.

But the death threats and prison fun might be worth it for you! Expect to take 6% to 10% of the total resale value of the plane. While 6-10% doesn’t sound like too much, remember that these are airplanes, not your “priceless” collection of empty Doritos bags. Each one is worth anywhere from the hundreds of thousands into the millions. A little of a lot is still a lot, i.e. anywhere from $10,000 to $900,000 for each plane. Multiply this rate by the 10-30 planes a year you’ll be repossessing, and you have yourself some real moolah.

Golf Ball Diver

Salary: $100,000

Your rich uncle Randy invited you and your buds to his private golf club to tee off. You don’t have a damn clue how to swing, but this is the only change in your life that you’ll ever use a platinum-plated diamond-encrusted nine-iron. You tee off and, unsurprisingly, it goes backwards and into a lake. Repeat for every hole, and the club owner escorts you out. So what’s he to do about all those lost balls? Well, he does the rich people thing and hires golf ball divers.

Yes, golf ball divers. No, you won’t be a goalie diving for balls at the edge of a lake, though that would be totally awesome. Instead, you don a diving suit and, as the job title suggests, find the balls at the bottom of the lake or ocean or lava pit or whatever.

Caveats

While this sounds pretty fun, all nice things come with risks. Diving itself isn’t for everyone; drastic changes in pressure and the general darkness underwater has both psychological and health effects that are potentially life threatening. Mess up underwater, and you’ll probably stay there, which would suck because your article in the obituary would probably read “Rest In Peace (you): Died while fishing for old mens’ balls.”

However, thanks to modern technology, diving is generally safe if you know what you’re doing and you’re not a huge idiot. The risks might even be worth it for you: Golf ball divers make on average $50 per hour, which translates to $100K to $120K a year depending on how much you work and how good you are at fondling for balls in the wet darkness.

Foley Artist

Salary: $120,000

If you’ve ever heard the shhhhk of a sword being unsheathed, the squelch of alien guts exploding, or the gentle crack of bones in a Marvel movie (don’t worry, he walks it off), you’ve probably heard the handiwork of a Foley artist. These behind-the-scenes audio wizards recreate every sound you think you’re hearing in film and TV, and they do it using bananas, corn starch, raw chicken, bubble wrap. And occasionally their own bodies.

This isn’t some dying corner of the entertainment industry either. In the age of streaming content wars and ultra-HD everything, sound design is more critical than ever. Top Foley artists are unionized (IATSE), have agents, and work on major productions. Some specialize in gore. Some in creature sounds. Some in footsteps on gravel. All of them get paid to turn weird noises into sonic reality.

Caveats

You will never, ever be recognized on the street. Your parents will lie to their friends and say you’re “in sound engineering.” Your workspace will always smell faintly like produce and despair.

Ethical Hacker

Salary: $90,000 to $150,000+

It’s 0300. You’re in an underground bunker in an undisclosed part of Finland. The external security cam footage on your computer shows the SWAT time kicking down your front door, just as you finish typing the last few lines of code that will grant you access to the Area 51 files. You pick up your Glock 17 and show the first cop in the head and—

Wake up. Sorry Eugene, but your mom says that your Poptarts are ready and you’ll be late for school, where Michael the quarterback will break your glasses again, just for the heck of it. You’re a nerd whose brain sucked all the nutrients from his penis, but you want to do something for the world. What does the future hold for you, besides Hot Pockets and free porn?

Meet the ethical hacking profession. Corporations, governments, and banks want you to break into their stuff. Why? Because if you don’t, someone in Kazakhstan will. As an ethical hacker, you’ll be asked to purposefully expose security holes in new software before it’s released to the public. You’ll try to think like a computer criminal, finding weaknesses and exploiting them before others can.

Caveats

This is the 21^st century: the information age. Everything in the world relies on computers. As such, software reliability and security are serious concerns for private companies as well as the governments of the world. Tremendous responsibility rests on your shoulders: if you miss one hole that another hacker could find, this could mean that a power grid shuts down, or millions of computers are infected with viruses, or maybe even that embarrassing video of you dancing to Japanese pop gets posted on the White House website. Can you take the heat?

Well, if you can, it’ll be worth it: ethical hackers make on average $120,000 a year. That’s enough to buy your way out of jail after inevitably exploiting your skills to actually hack the US Department of Defense database. Oops.

Wind Turbine Technician (in Extreme Locations)

Salary: $110,000+

This job is part astronaut, part electrician, part adrenaline junkie. You scale narrow ladders up towers taller than the Statue of Liberty, often in brutal wind, sometimes in sub-zero temperatures, and fix machines the size of cargo trucks. It’s dirty, dangerous, and completely un-automatable for now.

The pay’s excellent because of the risk and the remote locations. Offshore platforms, deserts, mountain ranges. And the global push for green energy means there’s more work than people willing to do it. Some techs pick their contracts like mercenaries: six weeks in Denmark, two months in Alberta, then off to the Scottish Highlands.

Caveats

You’ll be sore. You’ll be cold. Your mom will panic every time you tell her what you do. But you’ll also have one of the best views on Earth, and a bank account that looks surprisingly healthy for someone who lives out of a duffel bag.

Sommelier

Salary: $160,000

Love alcohol? Want to get paid for it? This job is for you! Sommeliers (also known in colloquial as wine snobs) have the lovely job of indulging in everything. Typical tasks include tasting wine, smelling it, analyzing it, and pairing it with the right dishes like filet mignon for maximum rich guy satisfaction. Yes, you actually get paid to eat fine cuisine and drink booze for sweet, sweet cash. You really can’t ask for anything better, except for maybe free blowjobs and massages to be thrown in the package.

But it does get better! This job isn’t just a cheap pretentious job that your friend Ricky does to sound fancy and sophisticated: average income for sommeliers is $160K. While you will need special training and education to get this job, the payoff is mad money and daily high roller luxury. Plus, you can show off to your friends at parties!

However, if wine is too sophisticated for coarse old you, you can also get a job as a beer taster. It has the same overall duty as a sommerlier, but your job will focus more on actually evaluating beers for their flavor, hop content and quality, etc. rather than how well they go with various dishes. Expect to be paid “only” $44,000 a year (which is pretty good for just drinking beer all day).

Caveats

The test to become a Sommelier is notoriously brutal. Imagine drinking your way through six continents and still failing a test because you said “peach” instead of “apricot.” Also, you need to spend years developing a tolerance for wine snobs.

Professional Sleeper

Salary: while you sleep!

The real money lies in being a professional sleeper, a gig that involves testing mattresses, bed linens, or sleep-related products. Companies are willing to pay for your expert opinion on just how comfortable their bed is. You’ll be spending your nights snoozing away while getting paid for your “work.” The dream job for anyone who’s ever been too tired to function and yet found themselves needing a paycheck.

This role typically involves testing out sleep environments, completing surveys, and giving feedback on the quality of sleep. Companies like mattress makers or even scientific researchers looking into sleep patterns need people like you to test their products.

Caveats

You do get paid to sleep, but it’s still hard work. Not in the physical sense, but mentally. You’ll need to be consistent, which means no wild nights out or benders. So, if your idea of “a great time” is lounging in your bed with an IV drip of caffeine, this might be your calling.

Feng Shui Consultant

Salary: $100,000+

Do you have an acute sensitivity to energy? Or maybe you just have a really nice way with houseplants? Becoming a Feng Shui consultant could turn your spiritual gift into a lucrative career. Whether it’s arranging furniture to promote harmony, or ensuring that your client’s kitchen doesn’t suck the life out of them, you can charge hefty fees for transforming spaces into zen oases.

In cities like Los Angeles and Miami, you can easily charge $100 an hour to align your client’s chi. Some may even bring you in to design entire homes, with feng shui principles guiding every room.

Caveats

Getting people to accept that you can “feel” their energy is the first hurdle. Some clients might want to test you like a skeptical lab rat, and there’s always that one person who thinks it’s all a bunch of hooey. Uhh, which it is.

Professional Cuddler

Salary: $50,000+

Loneliness is rampant. Unsurprisingly, then, some people are getting paid to offer companionship in the form of human touch. Professional cuddlers provide platonic cuddling services to clients who need a little extra warmth and connection in their lives. There’s no sex involved, just spooning sessions.

The pay varies, but professional cuddlers in cities like New York or Los Angeles can charge upwards of $80 an hour, sometimes more for overnight sessions or specialty cuddling services.

Caveats

The emotional toll can be high. You’re offering physical closeness to strangers, and that can be draining. You’ll also need to set clear boundaries to avoid any misunderstandings.

Private Island Caretaker

Salary: $120,000+

When you hear the words “private island,” you probably imagine living like a billionaire with a yacht and a personal chef. Private island caretakers live that dream every day, except they’re taking care of someone else’s island. This job involves looking after the property, maintaining the grounds, cleaning up after guests, and ensuring everything stays in perfect condition.

Some island owners want caretakers who are skilled in managing large estates, gardening, and basic maintenance, while others just want someone to keep the place neat and quiet while they’re away.

Caveats

You may find yourself isolated for long periods, and the work can be physically demanding, especially in remote locations. And let’s not forget that sometimes it’s more like a glorified janitorial job with the occasional hurricane thrown in.

Snake Milker

Salary: $75,000

Snake milking involves extracting venom from snakes to create antivenoms, medicines, and research materials. It’s a dangerous job, but it pays well if you’re working with venomous species like cobras or vipers. Snake milkers need to have extensive knowledge of herpetology and a steady hand, as one wrong move could lead to a deadly bite.

It’s a niche profession, but for those with the right qualifications (and a very high tolerance for risk), it can be quite lucrative.

Caveats

The job is incredibly dangerous. You’re literally handling one of nature’s deadliest creatures, and that comes with its own risks. It’s not a job for the faint-hearted.

Yourself

Your first grade teacher always said that you could be anything you wanted. But who knew that “anything” could make big bucks? With a little creativity, hard work, and luck, you too, can roll in the big boys’ club with your weird and wacky skills.

Able to summon vampires out of the ground? Know how to surf on a refrigerator? Have an uncanny skill of making plastic bottle houses? Do that shit and do it well. You are your own man, and your success is your product.

Good luck!