The black rat snake and milk snake get tasty frozen mice. The Madagascar hissing cockroaches gobble dog kibble and green vegetables. In the morning, the giant elephant shrews favor cat food, marmoset food, apples, and mealworms. In the afternoon they get crickets. The poison-dart frogs also eat crickets, on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays they like fruit flies.

It’s a lot of mouths to feed, along with the leaf-cutter ants, the bearded dragon, and all the rest. But Holly Hopkins, who handles these matters at Yale University’s Peabody Museum in New Haven, CT, says that, for her, the work is "the epitome of doing what you love." The title of her job at the Peabody -- Animal Care, Public Education Department -- seems a bit boring, however. Goddess of the Food Chain might be more appropriate.

How lucky is Holly Hopkins to be doing such an out-of-the-ordinary job? It wasn’t luck at all, she says, but a logical progression. She’s a semi-retired schoolteacher who is deeply interested in nature. For 38 years in her classroom, she and her students "constantly studied animals, plants, birds, and bugs. We always had a project going -- always something to observe."

In her youth, she read the nature stories of Thornton Burgess. "I always wanted to be Grandfather Frog. He knew why frogs have no tails, and why woodchucks are shy -- all the things I was curious about."

And now, in a way, her dream has come true.

"Odd" jobs are everywhere

Many occupations seem exotic at first glance, even a bit preposterous. Some of the ones popping up in the strange-but-true press lately are armpit sniffer (or smell research technician), duckmaster, paleoscatologist (someone who studies dinosaur droppings), and jellyfish farmer.

You can find more along the same lines in Odd Jobs and Odder Jobs, books by Nancy Rica Schiff. Schiff has tracked down, photographed, and profiled many people in interesting and unusual lines of work. For example, she once stood on George Washington’s head atop Mount Rushmore to photograph the man who fills cracks in the statues’ features, in this case Lincoln’s nose.

Schiff’s books include profiles of scores of off-the-beaten-path jobs, including Golf Ball Diver, Foot Model, Oyster Shucker, and Knife-Thrower’s Assistant. (Now, there’s a fun job.)

Check out her photograph, at right, of an "odor tester."

Don’t judge a job by its cover

There’s a common thread among people who make a living in "weird" ways: They’re generally doing things they think are interesting and rewarding, if not financially, at least for their own motivations, enthusiasm, and well-being. What about those of us who work in cube farms under fluorescent lights? Or seem to live in the commuter lanes? Or make cold calls all day, have to calm irate customers, pore over stacks of print-outs, or scan countless spreadsheets? What if our job descriptions (like "Animal Care, Public Education Department") may not always seem that wild and crazy?

Well, just as most exotic-sounding jobs turn out to be less so once the veils of mystery have been removed, most jobs, even seemingly mundane ones, draw upon elements of knowledge, experience, and execution that make them rewarding.

There really is nobility in every job. No occupation is literally so mundane it can’t be tackled with verve, integrity, and competence. That goes for everything from bagging groceries (a disappearing art since it seems these days we often have to tell the bagger how to do the job (hey kid! -- you’re not supposed to pack the eggs with the canned goods!), to quickly making sandwiches in a busy city deli, to teaching learning-resistant high school students, to analyzing reams of data.

All other employment concerns and life plans aside, your personal contract with the work at hand is what will see you through. In fact, the work itself is often your best reward. In the old saying department there is the Biblical admonition, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart," followed by Abe Lincoln’s "Whatever you are, be a good one."

Consider the sanitation contractor whose job is pumping out septic tanks and dealing with suburban sewage problems. Talk to one who’s been in the trade for a while, and you may find an expert on bacteria and other microorganisms, trees and animals that affect septic systems, local building codes and ordinances, public health, plumbing, lawn care, and a host of other topics.

Work to live? Live to work? Find the balance.

According to a 2006 General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, the most satisfying jobs involve helping others, following creative pursuits, or both. At the top of the list were clergy, educators, firefighters, psychologists, physical therapists, authors, painters and sculptors, actors and directors, engineers, office supervisors, hardware and building supplies salespeople, architects, mechanics, and science technicians.

If you look at that list closely, you’ll see that most jobs encompasses elements of many of those professions. So by some important measures, it’s caring -- for the work, for co-workers, for customers -- and creativity that bring about the greatest job satisfaction.

Good managers know these things and understand that the most content and productive employees lead well-balanced lives, with connections between their occupations and passions.

Simply encouraging employees to keep connections to their wide-ranging interests close at hand can make a big difference. Just as Holly Hopkins was able to surround herself and her students with the critters and natural science projects she loved while teaching the state-mandated curriculum. This can mean a small tank for your Chinese fighting fish, photos or posters that remind you of your rock-climbing adventures or triathlon goals, or blue ribbons for the quilts you’ve exhibited at the town fair every year.

Managers can also stoke the fires of job satisfaction when they involve employees both in creative work inside the company and in helping-hands projects in the community. One of the more encouraging trends in American business today is participation in company-affiliated volunteer programs, which go by various names like Corporate Volunteer Councils (CVCs), Business Volunteer Councils (BVC), and Workplace Volunteer Councils (WVC). Through these associations, employees can get involved in a wide range of fulfilling and helpful activities like food drives, literacy programs, tutoring, neighborhood clean-ups, mentoring at-risk youth, and elder care. For more information, check out pointsoflight.org.

And try to remember that every job has a little something strange and wonderful about it. With that in mind, you might find that being a smell research technician is nothing to sniff at, that everyone at the other end of the phone line has a story, or that reconfiguring data can take on new meaning.

Doug Logan is a writer from Branford, Connecticut. He last wrote "Are You Your Kids Drug Dealer?" for Synergy. Doug can be reached at featuredstories@adamcorp.com.