10 Well-Paying But Obscure Jobs That You Never Thought To Look Up

With supply comes demand. And with that comes upkeep. Here are some behind-the-scenes jobs that exist to keep services going for your pleasure.
image - Flickr / danilo.mistroni
image – Flickr / danilo.mistroni

1. Wrinkle chasers iron wrinkles from shoes using a hand iron or a hot air blower. The minimum requirements are just a high school diploma and an eye for detail (or wrinkles). The average pay ranges from $19,000 to $49,000. That’s not bad for ironing shoes.

2. Furniture testers exist because machines (or robots) simply can’t give feedback about how comfortable these furnitures being tested are. Testers will sit on an armchair and give feedback (or their experience) to the furniture makers. This human touch helps the manufacturers gain insight to what is comfortable, what material they should use, how high/low the seats should be, etc. Furniture testers make — on average — $31,000 a year.

image - Flickr / Dick Thomas Johnson
image – Flickr / Dick Thomas Johnson

3. IMAX screen cleaners do exactly what you think they do. Clean IMAX screens. According to a CNN Money article, IMAX screens can get notoriously dirty.

An aluminum pole that holds our device is attached so that the cleaning head hangs over the front of the screen. A winch powered by an electric motor moves the cleaning head up and down. One person works at the top of the screen, adjusting the machine and moving it horizontally across the surface after vertical sweeps. Another works an electric motor that moves the machine up and down. Lamb’s wool is the best material for removing dust and debris. Theaters that carry concessions often have Gummi bears or soda thrown at the screen. We also find spit wads. – Jenny Mero

And they make around $45,000 a year. Not too shabby.

4. Professional snugglers can make up to $60 an hour. They have been criticized as fronts for prostitution, but it’s just snuggling! No sex, just snuggles.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px34mZsK6PQ&w=584&h=390%5D

5. Hope you have a bad sense of smell and don’t get grossed out easy. Urine farming is a thing and urine farming has cornered a $44 million deer hunting market and they’re not going to fade away.

image - Flickr / Dru Bloomfield - At Home in Scottsdale
image – Flickr / Dru Bloomfield – At Home in Scottsdale

6. ESPN wrote that golf ball divers make anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000. What? How?

“It takes a special person to want to be a golf ball diver,” said Dick Smith, owner of Midwest Diving Specialists, a diving school in Normal, Ill., that offers a golf ball diving course. “That person has to love treasure hunting and be extremely testosterone-laden.” – ESPN

Oh, I see. I need a lot of balls. Apparently, there are snapping turtles, water moccasins and the occasional alligator to watch out for. Yikes.

7. If you’re a chronic masturbator (or likes to experiment), there’s a job market out there for you. Sex toy testers are employed by sex toy manufacturers to test out the functions of the toy (and if it feels good too). In 2012, AOL reported that testers can make $39,000 from just testing sex toys. That’s a fulfilling career.

8. Some people have said that they’ve eaten dog biscuits without knowing and enjoyed it. Although you might feel disgusted, some people do this as their job. Pet food tasters make an average of $40,000 tasting pet food and checking to see if it, well, tastes good. But that’s not all, they check the nutritional facts and see if it is indeed healthy for your pets. And just so you know, pet food tasters usually spit the food out after tasting.

9. Paper towel companies employ paper towel sniffers to make sure that their product is odorless. No one wants to use a smelly paper towel, so these men and women, equipped with their advanced sense of smell make sure the rest of the world get odorless paper towels. Their salaries range from $19,000 to $52,000 a year, with experience and olfactory expertise being a major factor in pay.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIn38ThUckk&w=584&h=390%5D

10. Some poor soul had to do this first and give the green light that it is safe for contestants to consume. Gross stunt testers exist because of shows like Fear Factor and these men and women help make sure no one chokes on a spider or cockroach. Their compensation depends on how difficult the stunt is, and according to Shmoop, if in the Screen Actors Guild, stuntmen can make up to $800 a day. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Want more tales of the jobs we take and the things we do to make it? read this.

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