I need to be a lifeguard
 

Gawd damn...

Your outrageous California budget profile cliff's notes of the day:

• 13 full-time city lifeguards in Newport Beach earn over $120,000 in total annual compensation.
• The top lifeguard earns $211,000.
• They work four ten-hour days in a week.
• They retire at age 50 and receive a generous pension. In fact, one retired lifeguard, age 51, gets $108,000 per year.
• They receive an annual allowance of $400 for "sun protection."

Switching majors now

I'm hoping they're experienced and highly utilized paramedics, some of which may or may not be MDs. That's the only way I can justify that.

A considerable amount of full-time lifeguards are paramedics and most are peace officers as well with arrest authority... not to mention the special mission training they have, SCUBA, cliff/mountain rescue, swift-water rescue, helo-operations, small-craft, etc. When you want a guy who can save your life under every fucking condition imaginable, you want a full-time lifeguard. These are not young kids fresh out of high-school who smoked too much pot to get a water-polo scholarship. The guys that make that kind of money are probably well into their second or third decade of professional lifeguarding and are the equivalent of a police or fire Captain or Chief.

I was a City of San Diego Lifeguard for 2 summers and did a weekend exchange in Newport Beach and stood tower watch at the Wedge. They would not let me in the water there, only observe. That place kills people every year and the lifeguards that work it are masters. It's also fucking Newport Beach, one of the most expensive places in SoCal to live... trust me the locals can afford to pay enough for guys who are good enough to make rescues in conditions like this: