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A line stander, queue stander, line sitter or queue professional is a person who takes a position in a queue area in place of another, often for payment. This informal occupation came to an existence out of the necessity to stand long times in queues.
In rare cases, people also choose to sit in line for non-monetary purposes, e.g. for media attention at major events, Greg Packer is an example of this.
The practice of line sitting has drawn academic research. A study conducted by Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University employs queueing theory and game theory to study the economic and operational dynamics of line sitting. The researchers contrast line sitting with the commonly used pay-for-priority scheme and show why line sitting can be a win-win for the service provider and customers alike.
A Polish professional line stander, Tadeusz Żak, has said that his profession requires certain personal traits: honesty, credibility, activity, persistence, and perseverance. He says he once stood in line for 40 hours. His specialization is lines in hospitals for registration to high-demand and rare specialists. "Profesjonalny stacz kolejkowy z Tarnowa: Najdłużej stałem 40 godzin, często zarzucają mi, że dużo biorę" In 2013 Żak lost his 13-year-old business, because local hospitals introduced advance registration. "Tarnów: kolejkowy stacz Tadeusz Żak straci zajęcie" Fortunately, Polish newspapers made " Tadek" a celebrity, and he started receiving various offers, some unrelated to his "business", for example, a role of a marionette in opera Rigoletto (because he is a Dwarfism). In 2014 he even accepted an invitation from the Democratic Left Alliance to stand for the city council in his home city of Tarnov. "Stacz kolejkowy chce być..."
Recently, line standers have started to take advantage of modern technology. In 2015, one of the winners of the Business Intelligence Hackathon API (BIHAPI) contest in Poland was a mobile app with a recognizable name "Stacz Kolejkowy" ("line stander"). "BIHAPI –najlepsze aplikacje społecznie użyteczne" "The Winners of the Orange Business Intelligence Hackathon API (BIHAPI)", February 25, 2015
Another peculiarity of Polish shortage economy and the resulting long queues were "queue list" ( lista kolejkowa) and "queue committee" ( komitet kolejkowy). When the waiting time was long, conflicts often arose about the place in the queue. (The corresponding phrase "Pan tu nie stał!" ("You didn't stand here, sir!") has become an element of PRL nostalgia. "Pan tu Nie Stał", culture.pl) To mitigate these conflicts, a spontaneous "queue list" used to be established, and in many cases, especially when waiting could be for a day or even several days, due to delivery delays, an ad-hoc volunteer "queue committee" used to be formed to maintain the queue list. "Komitet kolejkowy wzorem tych z lat 80. XX w.", Salon24.pl "8 Typically Polish Traits", culture.pl, August 20, 2015
Part-time line stander Robert Samuel came up with the idea after making a Craigslist post offering to queue for the iPhone 5 in 2012.
On October 18, 2007, Senator Claire McCaskill from Missouri proposed that linestanding for registered lobbyists be made illegal. Her feeling was that lobbyists should have to stand in line with everyone else. The Washington Post reported on McCaskill's proposal A linestanding company wrote in response to McCaskill's bill that eliminating the linestanding industry would eliminate hundreds of and increase costs for all involved.
In March 2012, the Supreme Court heard an unprecedented three days of oral arguments in regards to the Affordable Care Act (President Obama's Health Care Reform Law). Linestanders stood on 1st Street NE for four days holding spaces for various State Attorneys General, industry lobbyists, healthcare professors, and other interested parties.
Other examples of linestanding services include a service launched in Birmingham, AL as a response to the long wait times at the Jefferson County Courthouse Department of Motor Vehicles.http://dontwait4.it
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