The Snake Dude. Salary: $25,000 or less 

After four years of college, you feel as though you've learned enough to put down the books and pick up your giant pet boa constrictor. You print business cards that say "The Snake Dude" and hand them out at bars. You and your boa attend flea markets, beach festivals, and children's birthday parties. Only the first two were expecting you.

Hepetological Collection Manager. Salary: $39,600 

You snagged a master's degree, but didn't want to work in a classroom. Instead, you took a job using chemicals to preserve a massive collection of dead reptiles and amphibians for your local museum. You actually enjoy it, but your significant other is begging you to please, please, please stop wasting the soap; that smell will never come off of your hands. Just deal with it.

Professor of Organic Biology. Salary: $45,000 

You spend your days dealing with kids that you hate, but teach them with pleasure knowing that doing so allows you to work on your secret reptile project in the college laboratory. Someday you'll finish, and then they'll see. They'll all see.

Research Specialist. Salary: $60,000 

You do important work, and things around the office are never dull. One day, you're preparing tissue samples for slides. The next, you're constructing a perfect biome duplicate of the southern Amazon. You sit contented on the great lily pad that is life, and your world is nothing but clouds of tasty flies.

Project Lead. Salary: $80,000 

Twenty years into your career and not one snakebite. You're a legend among herpetologists. When the ecosystem is in jeopardy, the mayor lights a giant frog-shaped beacon across the night sky to summon you and your handpicked team of scrappy lab workers to save the day. You're not the herpetologist this city needs. You're the herpetologist this city deserves.