my dad knew the state commissioner of agriculture who got me a job working at a NC state agricultural research facility. (as like a field hand/ assistant. it was actually pretty interesting. they were running all sorts of weird experiments like splicing fish genes into tomatoes to try and make rot resistant tomatoes.
there was one corn field that you couldn't enter without a radiation suit because they'd irradiated the soil. every so often they'd have to cull the deer population in the vicinity, because they would wander onto the field and eat the irradiated corn.
never did find out why the hell they were doing that.
it paid like 8.50 an hour in 1994 money.