The Oddball Jobs That Make Bank: 10 Unbelievable Paychecks in Unconventional Careers

By Krystal Brown

Have you ever wondered about those bizarre jobs that pay a truckload of cash? Like, how much does a pet therapist make? Or a professional cuddler? These jobs may seem strange, but they can actually be very rewarding.

Pet Therapist

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Pet therapists work with animals and their owners to help them deal with a variety of issues, such as anxiety, depression, and behavior problems. Pet therapists can make a good living, with some earning over $100,000 per year.

Senior Project Manager

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With this title, you’d think the poor person with this job is loaded with almost every task possible. However, many senior project managers claim they barely do any work, yet they get paid a good amount of money. 

Some of these people claim to just do 10 hours of real work a week. Others say they get paid for having almost zero responsibility for things going wrong. For big companies, everything falls on the directors, but these senior project managers still get paid a lot for not doing much. 

Chief Ethics Officer

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In the United States, the salary of these individuals range from $100,000 to over $300,000 per year. If they are chief ethics officers in huge multinational corporations, the compensation they receive sometimes even includes bonuses and other incentives. 

Generally, corporate ethics is considered an oxymoron because business and ethics are incompatible. It doesn’t make sense at all, hence why the job of a chief ethics officer is considered useless.

Real Estate Agents

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Technically, real estate agents aren’t necessary, deeming the job a useless one. Lawyers can do the task of creating the contract and have both parties sign it. The nice thing about this is you won’t even have to bother paying 3 to 6% for it. 

Another thing is, anyone can sell their house without the help of an agent. You won’t need them, trust us. Simply take attractive photos of your property, write a description, and then show people through. The annual pay for these people in the United States is about $86,500 a year. 

Influencers

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Influencers just suddenly popped out of nowhere, but for some reason, a lot of people aim to become one. In reality, this “job” is considered useless, but it pays high.

Per month, even an average influencer can earn around $3,000 uploading content on their social media account. That means they could earn an annual income of around $36,000. For nano influencers, those who have 1k to 10k followers, they can earn about $1,500 a month, giving them an annual income of about $18,000. 

Most Managers

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Most of us think that managers do a lot given their position. However, some managers claim they’re getting paid too much for what they actually do. These managers even claim that their team members work harder than them, but get paid less. 

Also, some managers stated that most of the activities they do are going to meetings. Other than going to meetings, they usually focus on the boring admin stuff. Hey, at least you guys get good pay for doing boring things, right? Maybe?

Landlord

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In a perfect world, we’d have plenty of affordable housing and a very high level of home ownership. Sadly, many people have to suffer with terrible landlords who don’t properly maintain their rental properties. 

The income landlords receive from owning and renting out their property is quite substantial. An average residential property rental income can be at least a few hundred dollars a month. This is for a modest apartment in a not-too-expensive area. If the property is in a high-end location, the landlord can earn several thousand dollars per month. 

Professional Cuddler

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Professional cuddlers provide physical and emotional support to clients through cuddling. Professional cuddlers can make a good living, with some earning over $100 per hour.

Parking Enforcement Officers

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This career isn’t a high-status job and the people working as parking enforcement officers tend to get lots of flak.

Universally, almost everyone hates parking enforcement officers. To an extent, some people even go out of their way to freak out, yell, swear, and even threaten these people when they receive a ticket.

While they are just doing their job, they shouldn’t be needed. People should either have enough places to park, or not park like idiots. However, parking enforcement officers are quite well paid as not many people want this job. 

Fortune Cookie Writer

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Yes, this is surprisingly a high-paying job because becoming a fortune cookie writer needs someone with creativity when writing up fortunes.

Yes, at first, it’s a fun and creative job, but the challenge lies in coming up with short, pithy ideas every single time, which can burn you out.

This job doesn’t really have much use to society, but the average salary of someone in this position is around $40,000 per year.

Chief Information Officer

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CIOs can be useful in companies that have tons of legacy systems and challenging plans to combine and integrate them. But with cloud computing becoming increasingly common, it diminishes the need for a CIO.

Despite this, companies still hire people to fill the role of CIO because they’re considered “essential” for ensuring top-notch operations, digital innovation, and data security. Because their job is also claimed to have responsibilities that are critical in nature, they get high compensation for it. 

Telemarketers

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When we hear “telemarketers”, we end up cringing because hey, we hate them, right? But strangely, even if it is deemed useless with a bad rep because of the intrusive and usually unwelcome cold calls, telemarketing is a high-paying job. 

Successful telemarketers who are persistent and have excellent persuasive skills can secure notable commissions and bonuses. The job may not be that significant to society, but due to the potential high earnings, people still go for it despite the negative perception.