So the industry that I was in for a long time was production based, meaning your income is reflected by your physical performance. It was extremely demanding and also quite high paying.
So, I got stupidly good at this job. And I rarely took on additional responsibilities, because that would actually mean more stress and less money. In this industry, there were two reasons to go into management: you either had trouble coping with the physical strain that came with this insane work, or because you wanted to hold power over others. But it wasn't a pay bump and it was more work/responsibility. Consequently the people who took this on were rarely the people who should have and the industry on the whole suffers accordingly.
I went to school with a guy that became an underwater welder. Two things I learned about that job, it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and it pays a lot of money.
You wouldn't think it, but tree planter. A pretty quintessentially Canadian job. It's piece rate, usually between 15-50c per tree. I got to the point later in my career where I was regularly making $800+ per day, with a few days over $1500. It requires planting a helluva lot of trees though.
Not a year-round occupation, but it's possible to make a decent annual income by doing this seasonally.
Haha! I worked for a contract cleaning crew for some time. Turnover was very high since the hours and wages sucked. The only people who hung around long enough to become managers were eminently unfit to be managers. Seems like managers are destined to suck for a large number of reasons.