text: Intermediate 
  We asked five people who do some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work.
  1. Dog-food taster The job: Tasting dog food to make sure it meets a top brands quality standards
  What it involves: Opening sample tins of each batch of dog (or cat) food, smelling it and eating it. Although dogs sense of taste is different from ours, tasting is an important quality check to ensure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced in just the right way, says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lilys Kitchen pet food.
  Typical salary: 20,000 for an entry-level job in the quality department. However, Wells says an experienced technical director can easily earn 50,000 or more.
  Worst part of the job: The deadlines, for Wells, who admits he quite likes the food. The meat used in pet food has to come from animals that are fit for human consumption, under the Animal Feed Regulations 2010. He adds: There are some pretty terrible pet foods out there and, although I dont taste them, the smell is enough to turn the stomach.
  Job satisfaction: No two days are ever the same. Wells finds it rewarding that a project he has worked on will help pets to become happier and healthier. However, he acknowledges that some of the credit must go to another key member of the tasting team: Lily, the border terrier.
  2. Hygiene technician The job: Disinfecting areas that might have been exposed to bio-hazardous situations
  What it involves: Cleaning up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clearing houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement  among other things. The job is about keeping people safe, says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. We deal with some extremely dirty sites.
  Typical salary: The entry-level salary is usually around 14,500 and a top salary can be up to 22,000.
  Worst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. You get used to the job being disgusting but the emotional side of it is still hard, he says. You also need to have a sense of humour because some days can be difficult.
  Job satisfaction: Lewis finds the variety of tasks exciting. One day, Im cleaning up after a dead body; another day, Im in a prison cell or high in the air being lowered down into a silo to clean it. He also takes pride in the changes he makes: Its satisfying to make a hazardous site safe again. And it benefits society.
  3. Biogas engineer The job: Setting up biogas plants in developing countries
  What it involves: Linking a system  which can be filled with human excrement, animal dung and other waste products  to toilets to produce a biogas that can be used for cooking and lighting. You have to know what size and shape the mixing pit needs to be, how to create the best temperature for the process and where to build the biogas plant, says Baburam Paudel, chief technical officer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World.
  Typical salary: An entry-level salary is around 10,000, while a typical salary for a chief technical officer is 30,000.
  Worst part of the job: For Paudel, its seeing people struggling to survive on very little income. You have to be willing to get your hands dirty during the build process and inspections. Unsurprisingly, the anaerobic digestion (the process that takes place when bacteria eat the waste and produce methane) smells like rotten eggs. It can be disgusting and there is no room for mistakes.
  Job satisfaction: I find it very satisfying to know that I am helping people to increase their incomes and allowing girls to go to school by replacing the need to collect firewood, says Paudel. My work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.
  4. Eel ecologist The job: Conserving the critically endangered European eel
  What it involves: To monitor the size of the endangered eels, ecologists walk into the Thames and other London rivers full of eels, sometimes up to their armpits, and reach into a net filled with up to 20 adult eels to take one out with their bare hands. Adult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. Theyre not at all dangerous but they are almost pure muscle and they can be a little bit slimy, says Stephen Mowat, an eel conservationist and ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. We have to weigh and measure them, and they wriggle  a lot. Its difficult to look professional while crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.
  Worst part of the job: Eels are really tricky creatures to work with says Mowat. You also have to be ready to jump from one project to the next. I once had to cut up some dead eels to examine parasites living in them, moments before putting on a suit for a meeting. But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is definitely not handling the eels  he believes baby eels (known as elvers) are as cute as pandas: The worst thing about the job is regularly learning how much damage we are doing to the environment.
  Job satisfaction: Working outdoors and seeing British wildlife up close is the best part of the job, says Mowat. Eels are beautiful creatures and working with eels doesnt just benefit the eel  it helps rivers and coastal areas. That is something worth doing.
  5. Shopping channel presenter The job: Selling and demonstrating a wide range of products on live TV
  What it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous TV, while, at the same time, demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that youre selling. I prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand, says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV.
  Typical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of 30,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over 55,000.
  Worst part of the job: The unsociable hours, says Ryan. An experienced presenter like me generally has to work weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus, occasionally, a 5am shift.
  Job satisfaction: I love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second, says Ryan. I also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.