I liken them to cops on duty...unless you work in the busiest areas...and especially at night..you spend quite a bit of downtime and at once you are expected to be wide awake, 110% focused and prepared to make a snap decision that will affect not only your own job, or own life, but the safety of others...sometimes hundreds of others.
They get paid fairly well for what they do, the air traffic controllers, but you couldn't get me to do it for double that wage.