These weird jobs that make over $100000 a year are just up your alley if you want to make a killing without the usual 9-to-5 grind (plus overtime and weekends) that often comes hand in hand with a 6-figure paycheck.
Most of these jobs will get you confused looks, if not outright laughter, on parties when meeting new people and telling them what you do, but at the end of the night, it will be you who gets to drive home in a brand-new Corvette, while they struggle to start their beat-up Toyotas. Granted, a vast majority of these jobs won’t make your mother proud or eager to share your career with her friends, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. At least she won’t be setting you up with blind dates.
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Most of these well-paying weird jobs are niche jobs and highly situational. Getting into often doesn’t involve regular schooling and education and most of them are strictly on-the-job-training deals. Some are risky, some are gross, some are just cool, and many of them are a combination of all three. Almost all of them are outdoor types, but we have few that are indoors, for the people that think that nature is overrated. There are plenty of other weird jobs that pay well if earning 100,000 a year isn’t your priority.
To create an ultimate list of 11 weird jobs that make over $100000 a year, we combed several sources. At the end, we decided that these are the best ones out there: Forbes, Cracked, Salary, and Thought Catalog. We eliminated all those that don’t make 6 figures, going by the data from Payscale. The results are interesting and if you are trying to avoid sitting at the office desk for the rest of your life, some of these may be for you.
11. Deer Urine Collector
Ever been to a hunting equipment shop? Did you happen to notice those small bottles of deer scent that cost between $4 and $13 per ounce? Those are basically bottles of deer urine. While their practical value is debatable, there are plenty of people out there who believe that bottled deer scent will attract deer to them and their guns, so the industry is booming. Especially valuable is doe-in-heat urine which goes from $70 to $100 per gallon. Deer farmers across the country are more than eager to exploit this and urine-collecting buckets have become a staple on many deer farms.
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10. Stunt Performer
In order to earn $100,000 a year as a stunt performer, you really have to be good at what you do. Top notch stuntmen can earn as much as $800 a day, but getting steady jobs can be difficult in Hollywood, with thousands of people aiming for the same spot. Just like any other movie industry job, it is highly competitive, not to mention outright dangerous. There are plenty of stories about stuntmen and stuntwomen who have become crippled due to some freak accident or a stunt gone wrong while on set. If anything, they should get paid far more, but stiff competition has kept the wages rather low, one of many joys of our capitalistic society.
9. Podiatrist
What do a sprained ankle, athlete’s foot, blisters, and foot warts all have in common? They are treated by the same person, called podiatrist that ranks 9th on the list of weird jobs that make over $100000 a year. These foot doctors, like many other doctors, make a decent living, with a median salary of $124,000, and granted, most doctors occasionally deal with weird stuff, but you can hardly beat looking at gross people’s feet all day when it comes to weird. In our humble opinion, podiatrists are woefully underpaid for the job they do.
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8. Prosthodontist
We all know that a good dentist can make a killing, but prosthodontist rakes up even more cash doing a job that requires less staring in people’s mouth and far more making dental prostheses. The median salary is upwards of $150,000 a year, while a good chunk of them clear $200,000. It does require some more schooling and practice than an ordinary dentist, but with less looking at bad teeth and more money, it’s a no-brainer. Plus, it has a weird sounding job title, which can come in handy when talking to the opposite sex. Now, let’s see what else we have on our list of weird jobs that make over $100000 a year.
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7. Skycap
While not as glamorous as being a pilot, skycaps that are up next on our list of weird jobs that make over $100000 a year actually can, and often do, earn more money than some of the airline pilots. Skycaps have descended from redcaps, iconic railway attendants that helped people with their luggage and boarding. Once commercial airlines became viable, it was deemed normal that airports should have their own version of redcaps, so skycaps are born. The basic salary is pretty meager, but what makes this job viable for our list are tips. According to the CNN, a good skycap can easily clear $75,000 to $100,000 a year from tips alone. Not bad for hauling people’s luggage around the airport.
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6. Special agent
Ok, this one on our list of weird jobs that make over $100000 a year isn’t as strange as other weird jobs that make over $100,000 a year, but we added it for the cool factor. Whether your idol is Agent K or Fox Mulder, special agents have the aura of mystery around them few other jobs can provide. Plus, you get to wear a badge and a gun. The downsides include boring suits and a ton of paperwork if those TV shows are to be believed. A median annual salary for special agents is $77,000, but there are plenty of them that earn $100,000 and more.
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5. Locomotive engineer
An astronaut, a policeman, and a locomotive engineer that rank 5th on our list of weird jobs that make over $100000 a year are the usual answers kids give when asked what do they want to be when they grow up. The first one requires extensive education and years of training, the second one can get you shot, while the third option lets you drive a train, a job many of us would do for free. A median salary for locomotive engineers is $92,000 a year, with about 10% earning upwards of $120,000. Of course, a beginner won’t get such money right off the bat, but after few years of training, it can easily get there. Oh, did we mention they let you drive a train?
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4. Hot dog vendor
Granted, selling hot dogs in the boonies will hardly make you rich, but if you can snag a gig like the one Mohammad Mastafa of Astoria, Queens has, you can start thinking about retirement on some paradise island. Each year, Mastafa writes a check for $289,500 to New York parks and recreation department for a right to park his hot dog cart at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 62nd Street. The location, close to the city zoo, is considered a prime real estate for hot dog vendors. In case you are wondering, Mohammad has to sell exactly 144,750 hot dogs just to pay for space. That’s almost 400 a day, 365 days a year.
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3. Longshoreman
Remember The Wire? The second season focuses on Pulaski and his crew, a group of longshoremen colluding with criminals in smuggling, well, everything from cars to drugs and people through Baltimore Harbor. Apparently, in real life, longshoremen make so much money legally that they hardly need to bother with all that illegal stuff. Granted, Baltimore Harbor is a far cry from New York, New Jersey, and Houston, but even in those smaller ports dock workers can make a decent living. In huge harbors like those three, they easily make $100,000 a year. Risking such a job, not to mention freedom, by getting involved with criminal activity seems pretty stupid. Then again, there’s that saying about the universe and human stupidity.
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2. Elevator Repair
Why would you bother with going to an engineering college, slogging through all that math and probably ruining yourself with student debt, when you can drop out from a high school and become an elevator repairman? You will earn far more repairing them than the guy who designed them. Plus, he is still paying off a student debt, while you can blow all your money on hooker and coke, theoretically speaking of course. The job does carry a certain amount of risk and it certainly won’t make your mother eager to tell all her friends in a church about it, like her friend Ethel who keeps bragging about her son the doctor, but you can be sure that you will have far more fun than Ethel’s boy. Just think of all that hookers and coke, theoretically speaking. Now, let’s see the number one on our list of weird jobs that make over $100000 a year.
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1. Cleaning Golf Hazards
The job description looks deceptively simple: retrieving lost golf balls. But there is nothing simple in diving in ponds filled with crocodiles and snakes and polluted with pesticides and herbicides drained to it from meticulously kept golf courses. Still, reselling golf balls retrieved from golf hazards is quite a lucrative business and those who have a stomach for it can easily clear $100k, which makes it a great addition to our list of 11 weird jobs that make over $100000 a year.
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