At the peak of the oil boom in 2007/2008, having the right Masters/PhD degree (generally Geology with a major in oil exploration) could earn you a salary in excess of $100,000. This didn’t even include sign-on bonuses like apartments, houses and cars.

>> Usually offshore workers spend 2-3 weeks working on the offshore rig with 12 hours of shifts.

For most offshore oil rig workers, this works out to working about 6 to 9 months a year while earning as much as (or even more than) many white collar workers. Given that many white collar workers do a lot of unpaid overtime nowadays, the hourly rate of even an entry level position like a roustabout is much higher than that of the white collar job.

For those working on offshore oil rigs, a good way to wipe that smirk off the face of your brother-in-law the manager with an MBA is to calculate and compare both your annual salaries as well as your real hourly rates (that means based on how many hours both of you actually work rather than how many hours both of you are paid to work). A few years back, when I was still in IT, a colleague and I calculated our real hourly rates against that of a burger flipper at McD’s. Turns out we made only 20 to 30% more while suffering a lot more stress.