4 Common Jobs That Are Way More Dangerous Than You Think

Quick! Name one rock star characteristic nobody wants to possess. If you said "frequent death by plane crash," holy shit, that was a good answer, because that's exactly what I was going for, even though anything from "debilitating heroin addiction" to "Oasis teeth" would have sufficed.

Cate Gillon/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Warning: Cigarette smoke will make you look like a mid-'90s Britpop singer.

Sure, the statistics say that car crashes are way more frequent and deadly, but that doesn't change the fact that plane crashes do happen, and the results of them (usually measured in fatalities) can vary wildly based on the skill and experience of the person piloting the plane. Not every captain is going to have that FAA-recommended mixture of ice water, vodka, Miller Lite, and cocaine coursing through their veins like Denzel Washington did in the "Rocky for alcoholics" drama Flight.

Without the nerve-calming magic of substance abuse, pilots are left to rely on rudimentary tactics like "things they learned in flight school" to stave off disaster, and that's a whole lot of responsibility to put in the hands of someone who's getting paid fast food money.

Image Source/Photodisc/Getty Images
One flight to Newark, please!

Yes, commercial airline pilots still get paid something approaching a living wage, but the problem is commuter or regional airline pilots. Basically, when you book a flight from the glorious mecca of modernity that you eventually fled to in adulthood back to the depressing hellhole that most of your friends and family never mustered up the will to leave, even if you book the flight on United or whatever, at some point you're going to end up on a plane that says something like "JetBlue" on the side.

Darren McCollester/Getty Images News/Getty Images
It's the narcotic smell of Dunkin' Donuts just beyond the wall that keeps us from asking questions.

Even if you don't notice it, just know that it's happening a lot, to the tune of half of all the commercial airline flights in the United States. Now here's the troubling part: According to a recent study, a first year co-pilot at one of these smaller airlines can make as little as $19 per hour. If that seems like a lot of money, first of all, congrats on having Internet access despite obviously living miles below the poverty line. It borders on irresponsible, really, but the website I work for thanks you for the support nonetheless.

Anyway, even if that is decent starting money, pay for the most experienced pilots at the most major-est of airlines tops out at around $200,000, and you have to fly a lot of miles before you start making that kind of cash. That's not exactly indentured servitude, but it's also not enough to make "airline pilot" the sexy career choice it was back when your grandparents were smoking cigarettes at doctor's appointments and shit.

Chris Stein/Photodisc/Getty Images
"Those were the days."

In fact, there's currently a pilot shortage plaguing the airline industry. In other words, there are more available pilot jobs than there are people willing to fill them. Sure, that means the people who do sign up to fly for a living are likely doing it purely for the love of the game, which will be a definite plus if things start to go south, but the fact that they're likely to be consumed with thoughts about how to come up with enough extra cash to pay their rent and buy food definitely won't be.

Once the smoke clears and the investigations conclude, most plane crashes end up being attributed to pilot error. Would paying pilots a living wage lead to fewer crashes? I have no idea. What I do know is that American Eagle flights crash all the damn time, while UPS has only had five crashes in their entire existence. Can you guess which one pays a pilot with 15 years' experience an average of $261/hour and which one tops out at around $100/hour?

There's an even more troubling highlight of this job posting, though. Look at this shit:

NYSED.gov
Comforting!

If anyone out there was letting those pesky rules about knowing how to operate a bus full of children keep them from pursuing a side gig in operating a bus full of children, apparently New York is the state for you. As long as you're all right with not being paid, they're all right with you shuttling kids to and from extracurricular activities without proving it's something that won't end in you killing everyone involved.

Of course, this is pretty much right in line with how the public school system works in general. The more precarious the teaching position (inner city schools vs. private schools), the less it pays. Traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of death in this country; it only stands to reason that the people who act as the last line of defense between the youth of the nation and this unfortunate fate are paid absolutely nothing.

Armed robbery is like the shark attack of the retail sector. Everyone knows it happens, but no one thinks it will ever happen to them. I expect this is not the case with bank tellers, though, who must show up to work every single day thinking, "Yep, this is the day I get shot in the face." There are people in this world who make a living doing nothing more than driving from bank to bank sticking guns in the faces of perfectly innocent college students and soccer moms who get paid next to nothing to stand guard over hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Adam Gault/Photodisc/Getty Images
Nobody uses this stuff anymore anyway.

More than any other profession, bank tellers perfectly demonstrate the salary disparity that always exists between executive types and the people who do the "real" work. Have a look at this chart that shows the salary potential that awaits those who seek a career in handling money:

salary.com
This is where The Man works!

It's worth noting that among the people most likely to work in one of those often-robbed bank branches, the bank tellers, not a single one comes close to making even $40,000 per year. Yes, I understand that handling and counting money is low-impact work from all the standpoints, both physical and mental, but as that "shot in the face" bit from the beginning of this entry implied, it's still deceptively dangerous. Paying bank tellers poverty-level wages is borderline insane considering the responsibility they're saddled with. It's sort of like putting someone in charge of handing out freshly killed salmon to campers and paying them nothing for the work because fish aren't that hard to lift. As true as that may be, it completely ignores the fact that those woods are most likely infested with bears that want nothing more than to forcibly separate that poor employee from the fish they have no vested interest in protecting.

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This bear wants you to not be a hero.

That's the kind of danger that should be taken into consideration when determining a fair salary, if you ask me.

All that considered, when shit goes down at a bank, there are usually witnesses around. Some robbery-riddled jobs don't come with that particular perk. Case in point ...

I actually worked the overnight shift at a gas station for about six months. While I was fortunate enough to have never been robbed, I was pretty sure I was going to be on at least a weekly basis. People aren't generally up at four in the morning because they're up to good stuff. Even the transactions that end uneventfully start out kind of terrifying because, you know, what the fuck is this person doing up at this hour?

David De Lossy/Photodisc/Getty
Hopefully not this.

That's the first thing that goes through your mind every single time a customer walks in, and until they've literally gotten back in their car and left, you're never really sure if you're going to have a weapon pulled on you. There's no such thing as a "safe"-looking customer. Anyone who thinks there is obviously isn't familiar with the Dana Plato story, the moral of which is something along the lines of "No one thinks they're going to be robbed at gunpoint by the girl from Diff'rent Strokes until they're actually being robbed at gunpoint by the girl from Diff'rent Strokes." And that shit happened in broad daylight.

Working as an overnight cashier means working under the ever-present threat of being the victim of a terrifying variety of crimes. That people do it at all, much less for shit money, is a testament to how goddamn desperate people are for jobs these days.

Adam hosts a podcast called Unpopular Opinion that you should listen to on Soundcloud and a live stand-up comedy show of the same name that you should come see sometime if you're in the Los Angeles area. You should also be his friend on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

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