Oliver Eidel ·
June 01, 2026
The Thai Security Dude
So I was sitting alone in this coworking space in Bangkok, burning the midnight oil (at, um, 18:50 o'clock), everyone had left already. I'm vibe-coding which, at this stage of the workday, means that I'm just staring at my Macbook screen while the LLM-coded lines fly by.
I hear a Security Dude walking down the hallway, coming closer. He stops behind a corner and is quietly talking into his smartphone. "Just another Security Dude who is on a perma-conference-call with his family", I thought, which, for the record, is totally fine because there simply is not a whole lot of Security Dude Work to do in your average coworking space in Bangkok - I mean, I can literally leave my $5k Macbook Pro on a table in a Starbucks in a shopping mall for 30 minutes and come back to find it still sitting on the table, which still blows my mind. Back in Berlin, I wouldn't even have gone to the bathroom without taking my laptop with me. But this wasn't Berlin, this was Bangkok, and this wasn't even a shopping mall, this was a coworking space. And in a coworking space in Bangkok, a Security Dude likely has even less Security Dude Things to deal with than anywhere else.
So yeah, this guy was likely on a call, and that's fine, we were both at a stage in our workday where we both no longer were trying to be productive. All was good, and I watched the LLM-coded lines fly by.
But then he walks towards me. Is he kicking me out? I mean, it's 18:50 and it's always sort-of not super clear when the coworking space closes, just like many rules or always sort-of not super clear in Asia.
And, for the record, this has already happened to me once, when another Security Dude walked up to me and shouted "CLOSE" while symboling a "cross" sign with his arms. To be fair, I still considered this polite, coming from Berlin, where the fare-checker people in the subway always make you feel like they're about to put you in handcuffs if your smartphone drops some FPS when launching the app which displays your monthly ticket.
But this was another Security Dude, he walks up to me. He shows me his smartphone and points at it. It's Google Translate, in English:
I hear a Security Dude walking down the hallway, coming closer. He stops behind a corner and is quietly talking into his smartphone. "Just another Security Dude who is on a perma-conference-call with his family", I thought, which, for the record, is totally fine because there simply is not a whole lot of Security Dude Work to do in your average coworking space in Bangkok - I mean, I can literally leave my $5k Macbook Pro on a table in a Starbucks in a shopping mall for 30 minutes and come back to find it still sitting on the table, which still blows my mind. Back in Berlin, I wouldn't even have gone to the bathroom without taking my laptop with me. But this wasn't Berlin, this was Bangkok, and this wasn't even a shopping mall, this was a coworking space. And in a coworking space in Bangkok, a Security Dude likely has even less Security Dude Things to deal with than anywhere else.
So yeah, this guy was likely on a call, and that's fine, we were both at a stage in our workday where we both no longer were trying to be productive. All was good, and I watched the LLM-coded lines fly by.
But then he walks towards me. Is he kicking me out? I mean, it's 18:50 and it's always sort-of not super clear when the coworking space closes, just like many rules or always sort-of not super clear in Asia.
And, for the record, this has already happened to me once, when another Security Dude walked up to me and shouted "CLOSE" while symboling a "cross" sign with his arms. To be fair, I still considered this polite, coming from Berlin, where the fare-checker people in the subway always make you feel like they're about to put you in handcuffs if your smartphone drops some FPS when launching the app which displays your monthly ticket.
But this was another Security Dude, he walks up to me. He shows me his smartphone and points at it. It's Google Translate, in English:
"Please kindly be advised that this space closes at 7pm."
Oh man. All this time, while whispering into his smartphone, he was trying to prompt it to output this English sentence to (very) politely let me know that I slowly should pack up my stuff, I still even had 10 more minutes to do so.
My mind was blown. So polite and kind, and I didn't expect any of it.
I guess that's what living in Berlin does that to you.
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