I used to work in the CATV business. The guys working on the lines got paid very well. But most of them had horrible knees by the time they retired. Climbing poles is hard work. Climbing poles in a freezing rain in March is not fun at all.
Transmission line workers are even higher paid. Especially those willing to be dropped from a helicopter over a high voltage transmission line.
That reminds me of an interesting event circa 1993. I had just moved and was going to order cable. I had heard that a lot of cable installers did what the called “Coffee shop disconnects.” They had figured that when they got a disconnect order for an apartment that it would not be long before they got a connect order for the new tenant. They would sit in a restaurant and do the respective paperwork when the orders came in but never touch the physical cables. I hooked up my TV and it worked. Never ordered it and enjoyed free basic cable for 5-6 years. This was from South Bay Cablevision before the big roll up of cable providers.