The only time I have ever done anything "cool" for a job in my life was a brief stint as a bartender in college. To this day that is probably the best paying and most fun job that I have ever had. We work work for a few hours a night in a busy nightclub, basically were admired by everyone, and made a ton of money (basically tax-free too.) However, that in no way compares to the job of my friend that when the rock-climbing industry died due to no tourism, took on.
Suthee has been a rock-climbing instructor for 20 years and is one of the most experienced climbing guides in the entire south of Thailand. When tourism was shut down his industry, like every tourism industry, completely disappeared overnight. He was never a wealthy guy to begin with because wages in Thailand tend to be a little below international standards. He was always content though and I think a lot of this came from the fact that he loved what he did for a living.
I was really proud of him when instead of just wallowing in self-pity and seeking handouts from the government, he went and got certified in something that he has difficulty explaining to me in English. Basically he is now climbing skyscrapers and install whatever it is that they need on the exterior.
Obviously, this work has the potential to be extremely dangerous, but to a seasoned rock-climbing instructor, every single day of his work life was potentially deadly, so these great heights and difficult situations are no problem to him.
He confided in me and told me that climbing these buildings is actually a lot easier than rock climbing is because your upward and downward movement is almost entirely controlled by advanced machinery rather than your own leg or arm strength. Be that as it may, for someone like me that is a bit "stand-offish" when it comes to heights, I find this line of work to be terrifying.
On this particular project he told me that they were reinforcing these decorative panels to insure that they don't fall off the building to crash into something many stories down because obviously that would be a very bad thing.
The good news is that he has a job when many people in the tourism industry are simply shit outta luck during these zero tourism times. The better news is that since this is corporate he is making dramatically MORE money than he was before. The best news is that he loves his new job.
While I am extremely happy for Suthee, it is still a shame that a very large majority of people out of work from the complete loss of tourism are not as fortunate. In the meantime I am up here staring at a computer for 5 hours a day teaching English to Chinese kids who do not want to be in the class at all and show zero enthusiasm towards anything we do in the virtual class.
You win Suthee, you win!