A Chinese airline has sparked controversy after it was reported it included a zero-body-odor requirement in its pilot recruitment tests. Applicants had their armpits sniffed by company staff, to check for any bad smells.

You think requirements stink in your line of work? Think again. Chinese company Hainan Airlines demanded to smell under the arms of students interviewing as trainee aircrew. Obviously, there were other requirements as well, including 20/20 vision, a maximum height of 1.87 meters and a very good knowledge of the English language, but meeting them and failing the bad odor test meant instant elimination for candidates. “I passed everything, but I was doomed by my armpits, which are always a bit whiffy”, said one of the applicants. Asked about the purpose of this unusual requirement, one of the Hainan Airlines testers said “our staff works very closely with the public, and no passenger wants to smell a pilot’s armpits. And if they can keep their cool min this test, they aren’t going to sweat in the cockpit.” The photos below paint a pretty clear picture of how the BO test was conducted.

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You probably thought those high-end mattresses people pay thousands of dollars for are hand-made. As it turns out, they’re also foot made, as someone is actually getting paid to jump on them hundreds of times in order to compress no fewer than 28 layers of cotton batting.

Growing up, you probably dreamed you would one day find a job that would require nothing else than jumping on beds. Well, it turns out such a job actually exists, only those doing it insist it’s not child’s play. “It’s work,” professional mattress jumper Reuben Reynoso says. “It’s not for everybody. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it.” It’s not about achieving a great height or doing back flips and somersaults, but using his soles to compress the mattress layers and detecting any pea-size lumps in the filling. To do that, Reynolds uses a very precise, grid jumping pattern, making sure he covers the entire surface. “This is not a game,” he says. “Not to me.” And I’m inclined to believe him. After all, we’re talking about $2,700 mattresses, here, not trampolines.

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