Everyone needs a job to survive but not all jobs are created equal.
On one hand you have the safety and comfort of an office.
On the other hand, there are some jobs where a bad day at the office means you don’t
come home in one piece... or at all.
Jobs so risky that employers have to pump salaries up to ridiculous levels to entice
anyone brave enough to turn up to work.
Want to find out the jobs where a papercut is the least of your worries?
Let’s get it on.
SMOKEJUMPER Smokejumpers are the elite when it comes to
firefighting.
They’re like the Special Forces going behind enemy lines and deep into hostile territory.
Wilderness bushfires don’t have the luxury of sealed roads and hydrants in the street
to tap into for an endless supply of water.
Remote locations are too treacherous to get to in any form of vehicle, let alone a fire
engine.
This is where smokejumpers come in.
These guys are the bravest of the brave, who approach the out of control blaze in the wilderness
by helicopter, then decide it’s a great idea to jump out and parachute right into
the heart of the beast.
Getting to the fire before it becomes dangerous to people and homes means that firefighting
supplies, food, and water are dropped in to enable the smokejumpers to set up temporary
camps and spend the next 48 hours all alone to manage the inferno.
SKYSCRAPER WINDOW WASHER A window washer doesn’t seem like a dangerous
job at first.
A ladder, a hose, and a squeegee with a long pole is all that’s needed 99% of the time.
For the other 1%, you need an expert.
As society feels the need to build larger and larger buildings and skyscrapers, a niche
has formed for those who want to take a walk on the wild side – and get paid for doing
it.
Specialist window washers only deal in towers and skyscrapers, having to hang hundreds of
feet in the air just so you can have an uninterrupted, smudge free view out your office window.
They ascend huge skyscrapers, head out onto the roof, and abseil down the side of the
building.
Harnesses, ropes, helmets, and purpose-built platforms are needed to keep them safe while
they struggle to stay attached while strong winds push them from side to side.
LINEMEN While their name might not be too familiar
to you, linemen are actually some of the most important people in your day to day life.
As a matter of fact, you couldn't be watching this video
right now if it weren't for your local linemen.
These brave men and women work to make sure that electricity continues flowing all over
the grid, and are first on the scene when service is
somehow interrupted, like when a tree falls on a powerline.
As crazy as it sounds, they have to actually fix the live wires by hand, with
not much more than some insulated rubber gloves between then and one point twenty one giga
volts straight to the heart.
For decades, lineman has consistently ranked as one of the top
ten deadliest jobs in the US, and it's not hard to see
why; electricity is nothing to play around with.
One wrong move and its lights out.
Thankfully, these courageous workers are compensated pretty well, making on average 73 thousand
dollars a year, plus some serious benefit packages.
Still, no amount of money is worth your life, so you've really gotta have nerves of steel
to take on being a lineman.
ICEFALL DOCTOR Icefall doctors haven’t been to medical
school, but they are still responsible for saving hundreds of lives each year in the
Khumbu icefall on Mount Everest.
They are native Sherpas who are at the top of their game, men who know the summit back
to front, and inside out.
They are tasked with carving out routes between base camp and camps one through to four much
higher up towards the peak.
Khumbu icefall is regarded as the most treacherous and unsafe section on the whole expedition,
as the ice could crack and break at any time causing climbers to fall to their deaths.
The ice has less chance to break at night when the temperature is much colder, so the
Sherpas carry equipment though the section at 2am in the morning to prep the upper camps
ahead of the rest of the party.
The icefall doctors spend up to 75 days a year in this frozen, snowy nightmare.
LUMBERJACK Being a lumberjack is so much more than wearing
red checkered shirts, sporting luscious beards, and downing short stacks dripping with maple
syrup.
The reality is that this is America’s most dangerous job, more people die every year
cutting down trees than any other profession.
These men and women of the woods need to maintain ultimate concentration as a falling tree in
the wrong direction could end up making them as flat as the pancakes they hold so dear.
Cables holding trunks and branches are prone to suddenly snapping, sending chunks of tree
spiralling out of control, impaling those souls unfortunate enough to be standing nearby.
Having the blade of a chainsaw get stuck into a tree can cause the equipment to kick the
lumberjack around so fiercely that they slam into the tree hard enough to cause serious,
career ending spinal injuries.
Take on this career if you dear...
ENTOMOLOGIST Entomologists love to study bugs, and when
you think about it, they are the true unsung heroes of the working class.
Most of us get the heebie jeebies at the thought of having anything small with too many legs
touching our skin.
These guys are prepared to have insects crawl all over them in the name of research and
science, so that the average Joe doesn’t have to.
Some have been stung more than 1,000 times over the course of their careers creating
a pain scale that ranges from mildly annoying, to so excruciatingly painful that you lose
the ability to function and think rationally, and even pass out.
We salute any brave soul who chooses to get covered in a suit of swarming bees and envenomated
as their life’s work, putting their health and lives on the line so that we don’t have
to.
PRODUCT TESTER Anyone who tests new products aimed at preventing
someone from dying are essentially putting their own lives in someone else’s hands.
It takes a special kind of nutcase to walk through a field of live land mines and explosives,
in a bomb proof suit just to see if it will work.
Having an attacker armed with a knife try to bury it deep into your chest through a
stab proof vest would be absolutely unnerving, and fatal if something goes horribly wrong.
Bridges are meant to be made of timber, steel, concrete – or a combination of all three.
You generally want to use materials that are robust enough to take enormous weight and
be stable as they span long distances.
Glass isn’t a material that comes to mind when you hear the word bridge, and the guys
that test these architectural masterpieces dance with the devil with every step onto
virgin glazed panels.
LIFEGUARD Baywatch fed us a lie growing up.
Protecting the beach is more than chiselled abs, skimpy bikinis, and slow-motion action
shots of beauties running along the sand.
The lifeguards in charge of the Seven Mile Miracle on Oahu’s North Shore in Hawaii
know all too well that they dance with the devil when they venture out into what is the
most dangerous series of surf breaks in the world.
From an outsider’s perspective, the deep azure blue ocean, white sand and picturesque
barrels look like an absolute paradise.
The reality is that over 1,000 rescues are performed here each year, sometimes more than
30 in a day.
These lifeguards put their life on the line every time they head out to save anyone unlucky
enough to get into trouble here.
Strong rip currents, huge waves, and shallow coral regularly cause serious injury and death.
WIND TURBINE TECHNICIAN As the planet warms up from greenhouse emissions,
alternative energy sources are becoming more and more common – with wind turbines proving
a handy producer of power by harnessing nature’s atmospheric fury.
Like any machinery, these turbines can sometimes break down, and require a specially trained
technician to get them back to working order.
Repairing the blades and motor require a unique combination of construction experience, rock
climbing, and engineering know-how.
Climbing up to the top of 350-foot-high turbines requires nerves of steel, a high level of
physical fitness, and being able to feel completely at home at some seriously high altitudes.
The job is made that much harder by the fact that these areas experience high winds and
lightning strikes.
Straddling a blade during a repair is exactly like trying to keep a hold of a bucking bull
at a rodeo, those that don’t hold on tight end up falling off.
GARDENER At first glance, there seems to be very little
in the average back garden that could be labelled as even remotely dangerous.
That is, unless your name is Dean Smith and you work at the infamous poison garden in
sunny old England.
The heavy wrought-iron gates serve as a warning and are designed to keep people out.
Why?
Well every plant here is harmful to humans.
Anything from causing you to break out in a rash, get itchy all over, have you running
to find the nearest toilet – and in a few cases, you could potentially wind up dead.
There are over 100 species in this collection and despite some being truly beautiful, don’t
be fooled – they contain powerful toxins fatal to humans.
Gardeners here warn you to not stop and smell the flowers.
Even professionals don’t dare venture too close without protective gloves and a mask.