The Manliest Jobs You’ve Never Heard of

Lumberjack? Sure. Trucker? Of course. Member of your respective country’s infantry? No brainer. When it comes to manly occupations, there are countless things that automatically come to mind.

But, quietly and without asking for your recognition, there are men all over the world grinding out a living in manly ways that have never even occurred to you. That’s what we’re looking at today:

Shark Tagger

That’s right. Somewhere in the ocean right now, there’s a dude who woke up this morning, drank some coffee, put on his pants, and thought, “Time to bully some sharks.” These brave folks use lances (yes lances) to attach trackers to sharks. Those trackers communicate with satellites so that scientists can monitor shark behavior from the comfort of their safe labs and offices. Tagged sharks include 2,000-pound great whites, 1,000-pound tiger sharks, and, less relevant to this article, the less scary ones, too.

Snake Milker

While you’re banging away on a keyboard somewhere in an expensive-yet-somehow-still-uncomfortable desk chair, someone else is out there doing the real work of extracting venom from snakes. Why? Not just for the lulz (although perhaps that’s motivation enough for some of them). No, these guys are doing it to save your life. You see, to make an antidote for a snake bite, you need the venom from that snake. Snakes, in their infinite villainy, aren’t too keen on giving that stuff away freely. Enter the snake milker. It’s his job to dive in there and force that venom out of them. 

In case you’re wondering, there are two widely accepted methods of extracting venom from a snake. The first involves grabbing the snake by the head and making it bite a latex membrane and drip the venom into a receptacle below. The second way, no joke, is by using electrodes. All to make the world a little safer.

Airplane Repo

Take a moment to imagine this scenario: Johnny Bond Villain has a private jet, as most Bond villains do. Instead of buying it outright, Johnny financed it through a bank, and he defaulted. Instead of letting the bank seize the plane, he had his pilot fly it out of the country.

Enter airplane repo. 

These guys work on commission, usually about 6-8 percent. When you calculate how much planes are worth, though, that’s a lot of money per plane. These guys basically go up against criminals on a regular basis, steal their planes, and bring them back. Points off because you’re doing a bank’s bidding, but so many points awarded for combining the job duties of 007, a bounty hunter, and a master thief.

International Ice Patrol

Nothing is more manly than refusing to accept nature’s oppression. That’s probably not the International Ice Patrol’s mission statement, but it might as well be. The inspiration for this organization came when the Titanic sank. The founders (a group of North American and European nations) took one look in the paper, said, “Screw that,” and started an organization hellbent on keeping tabs on icebergs. The IIP tracks iceberg movement in the Atlantic Ocean, communicates that info to ships, and if necessary, tows icebergs out of the way. Seriously, if things really get out of hand, the IIP goes out there, throws a lasso over a mountain of ice, and puts it wherever they damn well please. The arrogance of that is one of the things that make doing this job so manly. To put it in perspective, successfully towing an iceberg to safety can take three full days, and it can take the vessel 10 hours just to get up to one knot.

Member of the Spaceguard Foundation

The first sentence in the last entry? Scratch it. In actuality, nothing is more manly than defending the earth from being destroyed by asteroids. Founded in 1996, the non-profit Spaceguard Foundation was formed to, yes, make sure the human race’s collective ass was covered if there was a giant asteroid on a collision course with our planet. Simply put, if “Armageddon” was a documentary, this organization would have deployed all its Bruce Willises and Ben Afflecks to take that giant space rock down.

Mayor of Manly, Australia

What is more manly that being mayor the beachside town Manly, Australia? On the surface, that may sound like a cheat, but a brief history of how the town got its name reveals a different story:
Captain Arthur Phillip of the Royal Navy named it Manly, citing the indigenous people’s “confidence and manly behavior.” What was he basing that on? Apparently, upon making Captain Phillip’s acquaintance, the indigenous folks speared him in the freaking shoulder because that’s how real men shake hands. Captain Phillip, apparently having no shortage of manliness himself, laughed mightily, removed the spear, and refused to retaliate out of respect.
 

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Which of these jobs would you apply for? Let us know in the comments section below.