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Apple Creates New Job Category: Professional, Like, Line-Waiters
Some have argued that iPhone 5 will single-handedly save the world's economy (as we 'discussed' here) and indeed it seems an entire new category of employment has been created thanks to the pathetic desperation of so many needing the new 'old' iPhone. As Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports, among the thousands of people expected to wait for hours outside of Apple's stores today, at least a couple hundred of them will be paid just to stand there. TaskRabbit appears to be the pre-emptive winner in 'arranging' these 'waiting-in-line' deals as one 'queuer' stated "I am a professional line waiter."
Of course, the conspiracist would wonder aloud whether these crowd-fillers and line-waiters are indirectly 'purchased' to create more buzz by the demigod itself. Nevertheless, what an inspiration these Americans are: "I've done other waiting-in-line things. I think it's going to end up being, like, my specialty."
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So, where is the bread line then?
I call bullshit on this article.
The New Normal's Full Employment High Self Esteem Job Satisfaction that Takes Place People Back into the Workforce
Forward
So how much in transfer payments does that line of people with nothing better to do take in?.
and to think all the chinks at Foxconn are jumping off the roof of buildings because they're only getting a few pennies per hour...
What they REALLY need to do is to go into debt to banksters to get a pHD from the University of Phoenix in professional "line waiting" & then they'd be riding the gravy train...
Queers not queuers.
This article is incorrect. People have been professionally waiting in line to generate hype for condominium pre-construction sales for years.
Apple goes to Williamsburg Brooklyn and rounds up a bunch of under-employed, unemployed, trust-funded, wanna-be hipsters for these positions. They are spirited and have all the time in the world. And only a few stops away on the L train to the meatpacking district apple store.
Like, YAH!
Something wrong with this nosnense, because my local verizon has three in stock and there are no lines.
I know 2 people who waited 4+ hours for the store to open. If apple were really smart they'd sell em to the highest bidder. These iDiots will pay anything to impress their friends.
I'd call BS on the last 15 years if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.
I'm with you Dwdollar, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, the last 15 years would be relegated to bad fiction.
hey, at least we've been duly entertained with the hilarity of what the whole world has turned into. too bad that it all leads to destruction, but we'll go out with a smile.
This proves that the Prophet Kurgman (Piss Be Upon Him) was right -- the iphone 5 will turbocharge GDP.
Plus, peeps skippin' work to stand in line will boost employment for others.
If queuers become impatient and smash the windows of the Apple store, GDP cranks even faster!
Agree - only 15 years ago I actually thought it was novel and therefore funny at times. Now I just get pissed off because I see now that it is not the acception but the rule that people have become idiots and spend my time waitng for it all to end.
When does AAPL pay people to DESTROY their iPhones to stimulate the US economy?
Madison Avenue is already way ahead of you.
I hear Krugman is running through New York City right now with a ball-peen hammer, a knife, and a cutting board.
So Krugmn is now a mohle?
Well, I guess, why not? If breaking windows adds to GDP, then lopping off foreskins can only add to the nation's prosperity as well.
when is the Task Rabbit IP0? get me in and tell me where I bought it later...
Uh... what else do you think relatively unchanged new models
are for.
Exactly. Going to be a lot of bread lines soon, "SNAP". Next will be jobs in the security area to guard food and fuel production and delivery.
"Next will be jobs in the security area to guard food and fuel production and delivery."
The "fuel production" part has been covered for some time now, by the US military... I sense only a slight alteration in their training is not too far away.
So, if China want to have the next reserve currency, when do they start training their Army for these roles?
Bankrupt Chicago and Illinois wants FED bailout; LOL hold yourself suckers. 1% city wide income tax next year. in the bag
I yi hi phone cult of unemployed College Educated No Future Sheeple for I phones.
This is unconsionable, there are $ 1 trillion in student loans by students waiting in lines;
we demand these phones; i want a cash for my i4 phone clunker for free phone;
if i want it , i need it, if i need it its my right, and if i dont get it for free Ill strike or Ill sue you!!!
Sheeple, print another I PHone Trillion....
thank you, another 1 family in Illnois per hour moving out, Bankrupt Chicago and Illinois.
I think ZH mis-quoted the line employee. It should have been quoted....."Like, you-know...I've done, like, other waiting - in - line thingies you know. I think, like, it's going to end up being ...you know...like, my spedal ...errr speccer...you know....my thingy.
Apple illiminates the need for breadlines.
All of the professional line-waiters will be subtracted from the BLS headline number in the next revision.
The iP5 has a fifth row of people waiting to buy it.
They used to call it a 'fifth column' ...
<Cdad gouging eyes out>
I'm hearing that the new iPhone5 will also debut a new app called iRiots [now that Spain is considering handing over sovereignty to EU bankers].
I wonder how they will manage to increase their productivity over time?
By doubling their size
Looking for work.
I'll wait in lines for others $15/hour.
I'll also wave at family departures and cry at the funerals for a close family member of the deceased $20/hour
In 6 hours time, you'd be able to cash out your paycheck, walk across the street & buy a Samsung Galaxy...
I think about employing somebody who replies to my posts '..hey wandstrasse, your jokes are so good... it is so thought-provoking and smart what you are saying..' and the like. ah... could have a second account and reply myself... no, I want it NOW.. new account takes too much time..
EXCELLENT POST!!! Wandstrasse, you manage to eloquently express the desires of multitudes and penetrate their inermost desires, while arousing their curiosity, but maintaining the superb humor quality in your posts. We can't help but ask for more (I expect my $10 in cash, no cheques or cards)
Just put it in an envelope and sent it to you... thanks. Next time please do not talk about the cost in public. Regarding everything else, I am very satisfied, thanks again.
$10 in fiat? have you learned NOTHING in your time here?
They are still convertible to real money.
Some quick napkin charting and ....
So for every 5 jobs we ship overseas, we create 1 part time temporary professional job in the US. Sweet!
Not only that, the one part time temporary professional job costs about 200K$ Sweet indeed!
And you need a friggin MBA to get dat shit.
Most of the "shipped jobs" are lost to robots. US companies restructure their manufacturing when they relocated overseas, they update their lines, which tends to incorporate MORE robotics/automation. More robotics/automation = less human workers. Folks overseas don't complain because they are getting NEW (rather than a reduction of) jobs.
http://www.automationworld.com/semiconductors/outsourcing-not-culprit-ma...
(the article is wrong, however, that outsourcing isn't costing US jobs [refer to my reason], but automation IS replacing jobs)
***newsflash from zerohedge*** people will do anything for money ***newflash***
So the USA is finally not Uganda,more like the old Soviet USSR.
Brings back unfond memories of my visits to that benighted empire.
We live in a fucked up country with misplaced priorities that's for sure. Waiting in line for an extra row of icons....idiots.
Just think of it as enriching the lives of Chinese workers.
I'm sure you're not really that obtuse. They're waiting in line to impress their friends. Just as sad.
The people downing this idea are free market haters. What is wrong with two willing parties arranging an agreement that is mutually beneficial (and tax free)? The free market at work with some help from technology.
people pay good money to have people shit on them....?! i dont think hating 'free markets' has much to do with me thinking it is stupid....
I agree. If AAPL want to create hype and hire "liners" more power to them. Its better than paying to be in line like everytime you need something from the DMV.
Time to SHORT AAPL at $705 over the weekend: QQQ re-shuffle inevitable announcement soon.
Again!?
Bullish for employment! Bullish for the BaLLS!
How can I short AAPL? Is there an ETF? This has all the signs of a bubble about to pop.
Reggie Middleton's got ton's of ideas.
This is bad, if the Line Waiters form a union, and then decide to go on strike forming a picket line it might become impossible to determine which line is which.
I am a scab line-waiter and I also kiss anyone's ugly aunt for a small fee too.
All training for serving the oligarchs (who are "doing God's work")...
Compared to line waiting, how sad is making minimum wage to risk your life over somebody else's oil and power fetish?
Apple presents real man of genius. Today we salut you mr. proffesional like line-waiter.
Snap! I loved those ads.
My favorite: Mr. Really Bad Toupee Wearer.
"You think it looks natural, when in reality it wouldn't look phonier if it had a chin strap."
pods
siri can you make this line move any fa-AASS-STERR
Yesterday I saw a craigslist ad offering $100 for someone to wait in a iphone5 line.
Nice to see the Apple-kool-aid drinkers part with their money so easily...
Ben would be proud of that dedication...
The front of the line was 3 days ago, so if someone took $100 to stand in line for three days, while someone with a job got an iPhone first without skipping out on three days of work, then I don't see how the person getting the iPhone is really parting with their money. They probably earned enough during those three days of work to pay for the iPhone plus the Line Waiter.
Hey DC Fusor... I'm wondering... How much did you have to pay someone to stand in line to wait to buy your 'coal fired' Chevy Volt?
Yeah, but, but... but what if their job was as a Line Waiter!
i-M sick of this shit!
Heh good one.
i swear to god i cant wait for this consumer based Imoron society to b brought to its fucking knees due to its on stupidity, hollowness, and banker brainwashed induced slavery...
FUCK APPLE, AND ALL ITS Ishit.....
fucking sumb ass americans deserve what their getting................
...we do have some anger issues, don't we? Now go back to screwing your camel.
hey buddy...u got a point to make then cool...
but why waste ur time otherwise with nonsense statements that got nothing to do with nothing...
or r u just a little bitch that feels the need to tell some one "fuck you too"...
if so, good job little man..now move the fuck on...
What point did you make other than venting, and not even in an original way?
I'm with you. Armageddon would be worth it to see all these little shit for brain cocksuckers become toast
Of course, since you are obviously living under a rock already. ZH should ban all idiot camel fuckers from posting on this site.
""I've done other waiting-in-line things. I think it's going to end up being, like, my specialty." --
Aim High Young Man - Aim High!! I mean "Like" Really High
OK, time to bail out. When I hear total BS like the iPhone will save the world economy nuttiness is coming to a crescendo. Remember when prior to the DotCom bust some 'experts' said the stock market could never crash again because....blah blah blah?
And later how the real estate boom was going to make every american rich? Well, we are at that point again.
Except this time the Fed is willing to print whatever it takes to keep the bubble inflated.
I remember every ass-hole, "so-called" real estate professional, trying to get me to buy a "i-House" back in early 2007.
Glad I didn't listen to those "suck wads", either! ;-)
I remember 2005 well, there were at least 3 realtors living in my street. Wonder what they are all doing now.... ;-)
Later I recall ads on Saturday morning TV showing housewives that were discussing 'the market' and how they got rich trading futures.
At least before there were bubbles the population could participate in, now its just a self feeding, malignant money tumor waiting to explode.
It's a finite planet. It's beyond me how anyone can not understand that ALL growth will result in some sort of bust.
Morons every one of them. I have a 6 year old Nokia phone works fine. These cocksuckers will stand in line for a phone but they can't be bothered to defend our constitution
You've got to remember that the line to purchase only requires a credit card or maybe cash,
the line to defend the Consititution comes with the risk of being pepper-sprayed, clubbed, and arrested.
One line serves the masters, the other threatens them.
the line to defend the Consititution comes with the risk of being pepper-sprayed, clubbed, and arrested.
Plus they take your phone away as 'evidence' ... maybe plant some child porn on it if you're already on their shit list.
This is more absurd than vegans.
What in fuck is happening to folk? They pay you to stand in a fucking queue? Fuck me, the world is insane.
I sometimes wish I hadn't woken up.......
No, I wish these iDIOTS didn't wake up.
Yeah but if you hadn't been pulled out of the matrix you wouldn't be having all this fun.
I hated being a Matrix battery anyway.
"They pay you to stand in a fucking queue? Fuck me, the world is insane."
And it's perfectly OK to stand in a manufacturing line making the shit that's co-opting everyone?
Perhaps it's over-rationalization, but "line waiting" seems a bit closer to doing something in the service of another: the other is in the service of a virtual entity called "A Corporation".
When the primary mantra is "perpetual growth," ON A FUCKING FINITE PLANET, then EVERYTHING IS INSANE!
Just saying...
I cannot see your point seer. One group of folk get paid to build shit we consume.
And the other get paid to stand there for fuck all?
Engage your brain mate. Just sayin.....
"One group of folk get paid to build shit we consume."
Operative word is "shit." People are programmed to consume shit (and fucking like it!).
I assure you, my brain is engaged.
My POINT, which is always an equal-opportunity-basher of all things stupid, is that NO side is as pious as made out. There's a subtle religious undertone in what I wrote (one can take it as part sarcasm if one wants, but one would have to actually be sharp enough to spot it- that's how I operate...).
Apple just so great for US GDP, all that money they will make to increase employment in SE Asia. Err does the US actually benefit from Apple at all?
Yes, it keeps our temporary, like, professional line waiters busy.
Sorry, but questioning/challenging the workings of The Corporation is not allowed.
APPL surging ahead on rumors that the ZH App will be announced any day now.
Just wait in a few years we will see homeless people with "Food for Iphone signs."
Years? I'm sure there's an App for that in the pipeline.
Once I built some ishit, now its gone, brother can you spare a C-note.
See this is what happened. I put out a sign that said "Fucking Morons Stand Here" and then these people with iPhones just started showing up in droves...
So they pay people to make the people, who are stupid enough to queue in the first place, wait even longer in a queue. How ridiculous is that and speaks volumes about the idiots prepared to put up with it!
In front of the Paris Apple Stores there are lines of... shady Russian guys waiting to buy 30 or 50 Ip5 at once, all paid in cash of course!
Good job Steve!
I wondered why traffic was light on the commute this morning.
You people are just jealous because you spend all your money on stacking PMs and you can't afford an iPhone.
Remember if these ILiners stand in line and get paid and pay taxes then it will be counted in GDP!
If I pay someone to stand on the street mocking these Iaddicts, will it be counted as GDP!
I specialize in dingleberry disposal from a particular orifice I own. It's an easy job and provide quite the satisfaction (especially after a healthy meal)
I provide lessons (low fee) on the entire flow for producing the best dingleberries.
I bet they used Google Maps to find the store...but Apple Maps won't get them home !
Remember when people stood in line for days to buy a new condo. Real estate agents paid people to stand in line for them.
Apple claims to have invented the UI, Apple patents smartphones with rounded corners, now it seems like professional line-waiters were apparently invented by Apple... I call bullshit and prior art. Professional line waiters were booming in the Eastern Block countries decades ago. There were severe shortages of stuff and it was not uncommon to have to wait for weeks to buy , say, furniture (of course, people were not physically standing in front of the shop for weeks - they had a book were a 'line manager' would write how the line looks like and one had to show up every day at a given time and report to him not to lose his place in the line) The retirees would often help out their families by standing in those lines and make little money by standing in many other virtual lines for many people.
Sometimes the only progress you would make for a week's worth of virtual standing was moving one place up the line from place 247 to 246 because one poor sob forgot to report and was bumped all the way to the end, to place 1141 :)
can't wait for the ifone 5 muggings to start...enhanced by the fact that most of the new fanboi owners couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag
Introducing... iShield for those pesky bullets
http://www.gizmowatch.com/marudais-bulletproof-iphone-4-case-protect-iph...
They've been going on here in NYC for a good while. There are warning-posters all over the subways warning people to look out for phone thieves. Which strikes me as a waste of money, because the "pod-people" who are permanently attached to their phone gadgets will never notice a poster, anyway.
Basically, the phone owners are so spacey and oblivious to their surrounding that you can just walk up to them, remove the groceries from the bags they're carrying, pick their pockets, and then finally just take the phone out of their hand.
That's when they snap out of it and realize something's happened. Time it before the next stop and you should have plenty of time to get away.
They won't be able to take your picture or call the cops, so you probably don't have anything to worry about.
I believe it was some comic who had a bit about posting HUGE "Don't Crash" signs on freeways. Without a doubt there were likely people who thought it a good idea...
AAPL has now added Iphone 5 and Iphone 6 to market cap in 1 month. 200 million iphone 5s @ 250 per and 200 million iphone6s @250 per
Price doesnt matter. Just has to trade higher to avoid economic implosion
This job is old news. I was a professional gas station line waiter for my entire family during shortages in the 70s.
This job profile is not new! Every South American country has them... To wait in line at banks, public offices etc...
Line Waiter Story.
Saw this on a Michael Wood documentary "The Wonders of India", can't remember the exact title.
Anyway MW is in town A and wants to get to town B. The only means of transport is a private pickup truck where passengers ride in the back. So MW asks the truck owner when is the departure time, the owner replies "As soon as we have 6 passengers". MW looks up at the truck and sees 5 people on board, so pays the driver the required fee. However as soon as he takes his place on the bed of the truck, one of the other "passengers" gets off. It turns out that most, if not all, of the other "passengers" on the truck were paid to sit and wait and attract paying customers.
Should work wonders for BLS efforts to get unemployment below 8 percent before November 6th.
People will do anything for another row of iCons.
Just practice...Soon to be standing in soup line!
Money should have been saved for food...Just add to your regret list!
What's so strange about that? I've hired professional queuing specialists 20 years ago in Brazil already. Nothing new, you can find them in all developing countries of the planet.
Congratulations, USA.
In China we have this whole thing simplified. You come and take a number, then wait to be served. In cases where people come and snap up numbers to resell to legit customers, they just implement a fee to take the number in the first place. Kinda sad how america hasn't figured this out.