Aj says it sounds boring but he really enjoys it
A man has explained how he gets paid £250 a time to do ‘the most British job ever’.. AJ Hubbins is a ‘professional queuer’, staning in line for hours at a time.
The first ever time he stood in a line, AJ was queuing for the opening of a new Sephora store and had nothing with him: no food, no water and not even a coat to keep him warm during the 13-hour overnight wait. AJ initially dreaded the tedious task, but he was surprised to find he actually enjoyed the experience.
As a professional queuer, AJ is paid to stand in line on behalf of other people for concert tickets, pop-up stores, product launches and shop openings. The job is more common in large cities, where demand and waiting times can be extreme.
The 23-year-old, from Manchester, says: “I will queue for absolutely anything. My first queuing job was for the grand opening of Sephora in Liverpool, and that was 13-hours. But I will queue for anything: concerts, tickets, new products and so on.”
For his first queuing job, AJ was asked to stand in line to become one of the first 500 people to visit the store and collect the free goodie bag and he was paid £250 to essentially stand, and sit, around. He arrived at 8pm to find around 100 people already lining up for the 9am opening
“I had a small foldable chair, but not much else. I was a little underprepared. I had no food, so I had to order a pizza to my place in the line. Now I am a bit more geared up for it,” says AJ.
Despite the UK’s strict unwritten codes around queuing (single file, no pushing, no jumping), AJ found the queuing community relaxed and fun, and by making friends around him he was able to nip out for food, drinks or toilet trips while others reserved his place.
“Now I bring everything,” he says. “I bring a better chair, a mat to sleep on, food and drink. It is a lot easier if you make yourself comfortable with the people around you in the queue, because you’re going to be with them for quite a while. And it is sociable. It’s easy to communicate with people. It’s quite fun.”
AJ stands in queues to supplement his work in TV and film production, and he finds jobs through the local services marketplace Airtasker. According to Airtasker, the average Brit spends 15 full days a year standing in line, and almost half (44 per cent) say they waste up to three hours a day waiting around.
Over the past two years, the platform has seen a 50 per cent increase in requests for people to queue on behalf of others. “Once I arrived at Sephora, the queue grew very rapidly,” says AJ. “There were probably about a thousand people there. You just make yourself comfortable. I saw a few families with tents, which made me realise that perhaps I should have been more prepared.”
Some seasoned queuers even came in pyjamas and slippers with sleeping bags and camping mats. “It’s like a whole living room set-up. It’s pretty crazy.”
“Eventually we started mingling. I ended up playing games with people like charades and Heads Up!. I realised how terrible I was at general trivia. It was good. Quite exciting. I met quite a few people in the queue who do this quite regularly, and I was getting queuing tips from them.”
When he got to the front of the queue, he accepted the goodie bag containing shampoo, conditioner, make-up samples, skincare products and face masks, and took it home for the client. Now AJ queues regularly for cash, negotiating the price with each client individually. He says the events are usually quite well organised, sometimes with musicians entertaining the crowd or organisers handing out free samples to people in the queue.
“£250 for essentially not doing anything is good money,” says AJ. “And it can be a fun experience, with everyone being social and getting to know one another. The atmosphere is usually amazing.”
But it’s not all easy. It can be cold at night and hard to sleep in a camping chair in the elements, although some promoters provide ponchos and umbrellas in the rain. And AJ admits he gets irritated when event organisers fail to manage things effectively or openings run late.
AJ has been fascinated by the die-hard fans he has witnessed. One mum came with her primary school-aged children straight from school to stand in a Sephora queue in their uniforms, waited all night, took them back to school in the morning and then returned to the queue herself. “It was bizarre. I was a little sceptical about her parenting,” he says. “And I do get quite a few looks. I’m often towering over all these fans and teenagers, so I can sometimes look a little out of place. I just enjoy listening to all the gossip. People start to talk and then you get lots of insights into their lives, which is pretty fun. So you don’t usually get bored.”
It’s not the only quirky job AJ has found on Airtasker. He has helped panicked lovers buy last-minute Valentine’s Day gifts, rushing around on 14 February to pick up roses and chocolates when customers were unable to do so themselves. And he hires Airtaskers himself when needed, including finding someone to help him move house.
“He was really good, professional and friendly,” he says. “I enjoy the work. It’s varied, you meet people and it’s taught me things. I always thought of myself as a pretty patient person, but standing in queues for hours has made me really patient.”
