Get Hired...Sorta. Salary: $0

You're so excited to be accepted into the U.S. Air Marshal Training Program. The first day you report for training, though, there's a sign on the door to the room that reads, "This office has been shut down due to cutbacks." Bummer.

Fresh Out of Training. Salary: $40,000

You graduate training from the U.S. Air Marshal Program, but when it comes time to give you your first assignment, they tell you there are no open ones. Instead you get to guard the phones of your supervisor's office while he's on vacation...indefinitely. Hey, at least you're getting paid.

In the Air at Last. Salary: $48,000

Your first flight as a U.S. Air Marshal is on a non-stop flight to Paris with a return trip that sends you right back to the States. You're not allowed to fall asleep and one of the two restrooms is clogged and out of service five minutes after take-off. You're starting to accumulate actual in-the-sky experience, though.

Three Years In. Salary: $71,000

Congratulations, you've spent three years protecting and defending the friendly skies as an air marshal. Now you can transfer into a higher paying government security job with better long-term prospects and you get to keep your stellar pension.

Supervisor. Salary: $96,000

After five years on the job as an air marshal, thousands of flights back and forth, watching people until you felt you might go insane from the killer combo of high stress and extreme boredom (at the same time), you now make the big bucks overseeing your very own air marshal office, telling all the other field officers what to do and no longer living out of a suitcase. Now if they'll just keep the office you're running open...