Surprising salaries for jobs you’d never imagine

> Quora exec Marc Bodnick sees the media deals as a win-win, where Quora writers get more distribution, and media partners get good content. (http://allthingsd.com/20131119/quora-will-push-its-most-link...)

At least some publishers have been called out and ended up doing the right thing, like when huffpo published unsourced, ridiculous answers about trader joes' two buck chuck:

>This blog post contained un-sourced claims about Two Buck Chuck and its proprietor, Bronco Wines. It has been removed from the site in accordance with our blogger terms. (http://www.starkinsider.com/2014/08/trader-joes-two-buck-chu...)

>“My 19 year-old boss was taking home $35,000/year with benefits,” he said. “Plus they train you on the job for free. She told me that she was on track to be a regional manager by the age of 30 and would make 100k by then.”

>Katie Nellis said managers of Walgreen's drugstores in the US “often retire in their 40s.”

Are we just taking these wild, likely highly exaggerated claims at face value? And did the BBC really just re-publish comments from Quora as a story with no additional verification?

In that case, the most surprising salary is for journalists at the BBC - I'm surprised they can keep a job at all.

The 'not surprising' part really is the down to hustle - it should not be surprising at all that some people can hustle up paying customers for services that we'd ignore or look down on. The dog walking gig - you must really love dogs to be cleaning up dog crap for up to 8 dogs at a time, 5-7 days per week, 6-8 hours per day.

I've known dog walkers and pool cleaners. Most don't make anywhere near that, because they're not good hustlers - they're not networked sufficiently, and don't know how to attract enough customers and manage a business. Someone with the skills to attract customers and properly manage 'busyness', money will flow almost in spite of whatever skills/education they may have or, more usually, not have.

Many small towns and fishing villages have been de-populated of men aged 20 to their 40s who went to work in the oil fields.

Going from seasonal work drawing unemployment benefits to $100,000+ working six months and all your food and lodging paid for even free tickets to fly to and from home.

Small towns now have big loud trucks from Alberta and lots of "that's not how we do it in Alberta" arguments. Small town poor boy makes it big can create some assholes.

As you might imagine, any jobs tied to real estate development very closely track the real estate market, be it residential or commercial. That market can be exciting, but it's also inherently unstable.

[1] I don't work in construction, but I have invested in a few buildings, and I talk to contractors and workers pretty regularly.

Are they really using Quora as a reference? Even if this is honest, the responder went to probably one of the top salons in Bangalore, in which case the same would hold in Western countries. Most hair dressing jobs in India are low paying, and most of the rest are average paying.

The theater/opera carpenter one really surprised me. I wonder why they are paid so much? Unions?

Construction I totally understand. I come from Perth, Western Australia, which is in the midst of a resources boom that has been going on almost unabated for 15-20 years. The scope and scale of what is being dug up from the ground or drilled from the sea is probably unprecedented.

This puts an incredible amount of pressure on construction. So much so that in 2000 you could buy a house for ~$100k in Perth. 5 years later that same house was $350k+. Most of that was just increased construction and materials cost, not land appreciation.

The problem with such massive increases in the cost of construction is that it feeds into virtually everything else. If you've ever been to Perth, you'll know it's an incredibly expensive city now. Back in the 90s I lived comfortably as a student in a 2 bedroom apartment and all expenses for <$200/week.

I often wonder if Australia will suffer (or is already suffering) from Dutch Disease [1]. It's a place now of the haves (those in mining/construction) and have nots (everyone else). Even if you're one of the lucky ones, the standard of living is not great.

I say this as someone who lives in Manhattan. But New York City has way more options for the whole income spectrum. Less than $200k can get you a 1 bedroom in Sunnyside, Queens that's <30 minutes to Midtown.

In Perth, there are no cheap options anymore. Even 5 years ago, 40-50 year old crappy apartments were being rented out for $300/week sight unseen.

Anyway I don't begrudge any of these jobs their good fortunes (I am a software engineer after all). I do worry about construction in particular however because of the on-flow effect into everything else.

Construction really is a mixed bag too. Highly paid crane operators? That's a stressful/demanding job. No problem there. 6 figure incomes for guys who stand on the street with a stop sign wearing a hard hat? Well, that's just a racket.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

Don't forget the other part of the job: scheduling much of the just above minimum wage workforce under you to work less than 30 hours/week so they don't get benefits.