Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting in line. Same Ole Line Dudes Founder & CEO Robert Samuel discusses how time is money and being in the business of throwing his “wait” around to take your place in line. 
 
 Everyone is familiar with waiting in line. According to a recent study in The New York Times, Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting for all sorts of things. 
 
 Yet for some people, patience isn't necessarily a virtue and time is money. Therefore, there are better ways to get that shiny new Apple gadget than camping out for days in front of their store, or squatting on the sidewalk to purchase a pair of limited edition Nike Air Jordans. 
 
 Enter the professional who, for a fee, will save you precious time. 
 
 
 
 "The longest I've ever been on a line was 38 hours for an iPhone," says Robert Samuel, a professional line waiter, in an interview with CNBC. 
 
 
 
 Samuel is the CEO and founder of SOLD, an acronym for Same Old Line Dudes. After he was laid off from his job in 2012, Samuels launched SOLD as a line waiting service. Since then, the business has since grown into an enterprising start-up that views time as a precious commodity. And people are clearly willing to pay to save it. 
 
 
 
 While Samuel describes SOLD's clients as average everyday people, he says his customer are more time strapped than cash poor, and vary widely from middle class to super-wealthy. 
 
 
 
 "Moms hire me because they can't wait in lines in the mornings. They have to take the kids off to school," says Samuels. "I get hired by people who want stuff but their schedules are just tight." 
 
 
 
 Read MoreExcited about Apple? The line seems to have started in Sydney ||||| Robert Samuel, founder of Same Ole Line Dudes, makes up to $1,000 a week to stand in line. He waits in line for Broadway shows, sample sales, tech releases and even brunch waitlists. 
 
 Samuel recently spent 48 hours outside the Apple store in the Meatpacking District waiting for the iPhone 6s. He was the first in line, slept in a fold-up cot for two nights, had pizza delivered to his spot and snagged $1000 for the gig. 
 
 Samuel's business joins dozens of "Ubers" like Lugg: Uber for Movers, Doughbies On-Demand: Uber for chocolate chip cookies, Minibar: Uber for alcohol and Breather: Uber for peace and quiet — all of which essentially allow customers to buy their way to the front. ||||| So what compels Mr. Samuel to spend so much time in line? Well, to be exact, $25 for the first hour and $10 for each additional half-hour. 
 
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 “I take PayPal, Chase QuickPay and Venmo,” he said. 
 
 If additional people have to be hired for multiple orders, then the price can balloon, as it did in June when Mr. Samuel and his posse of eight waited in line to buy 18 Cronuts for a group of wealthy Middle Easterners staying at the Mandarin Oriental in Columbus Circle. (There’s a limit of two per person.) 
 
 Mr. Samuel, you see, is a professional line-sitter, a job that began two years ago when he lost his job selling smartphones at an AT&T store on East 86th Street. 
 
 “I was fired for being late,” he said. “A few minutes here, a few minutes there.” 
 
 After several months of being unemployed and depressed, Mr. Samuel put an ad on Craigslist offering to stand in line for anyone who wanted a soon-to-be-released iPhone 5. An offer came in, and he made it to the Apple store in the meatpacking district early enough to be third in line, which got him an interview with The Daily News. 
 
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 Similar postings on Craigslist followed, and he was hired to stand in line for designer sample sales and concert tickets. 
 
 It hasn’t been all roses. 
 
 The line-sitters for new iPhones are no longer die-hard Apple fans, but Chinese men and women who sell them to middlemen who export them to China for a tidy profit. “They have this whole operation or scheme, and they look at us like, ‘How dare they?’ ” he said. “We definitely feel the tension.” 
 
 And don’t get Mr. Samuel started on what it’s like to wait for “Saturday Night Live” tickets. 
 
 “I really don’t want to do that,” he said. “People are on line for days at a time. We go from 11 at night till 6 in the morning, and you don’t get in. With a big show like Justin Bieber, I would probably just tell you no. Tina Fey? Not happening.” 
 
 Mr. Samuel’s business is cyclical, so he continues to work full time as a security guard for a financial services company. Though Craigslist and Yelp haven’t had an avalanche of professional line-sitters yet, there is nevertheless competition coming from share economy start-ups like TaskRabbit and Agent Anything, where the young and underemployed can be purchased to do any variety of small tasks. 
 
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 Mr. Samuel’s own mother remains skeptical about her son’s latest endeavor, regardless of the attendant publicity. 
 
 “She thinks I should go back to school,” said Mr. Samuel, who dropped out of Pace University in 1996 with about a year and a half left before getting his undergraduate degree. (He refers to it as his “reverse sabbatical.”) 
 
 Certainly, the line in Rockefeller Center the other Friday was enough to question whether being a line-sitter is a smart career move. Just before 8 a.m., a young woman started passing out wristbands, the morning’s equivalent of a golden ticket, but stopped five people short of Mr. Samuel and his group. 
 
 “Sorry, we’re out” she said, indicating that the limited-edition game was very limited indeed. 
 
 Mr. Samuel was unfazed. “They hired us for four hours, and we got here at 4,” he said, packing up his belongings to hop on the subway back to his home in Chelsea. 
 
 Still, he decided that he would give a partial refund to his customers. It was good P.R. 
 
 “It’s not fair to take the full amount of waiting when we didn’t get the product,” he said. “One of the customers is a loyal customer. He’s used me before and he gave me a good rating on Yelp.” ||||| Cronut Delivery? No problem! Designer Sample Sales? A breeze! Saturday Night Live Standby Tix? We've got it covered! We are a team of professional line sitters whose primary aim is to reduce your wait for anything this great city has to offer. With over 8 million residents, lines for anything in New York can be long! Add to that, over 56 million tourists each year and you're in for an even longer wait! 
 
 Whether it's iPhones, the latest Air Jordans, or the hottest Broadway tix in town, Same Ole Line Dudes, understands your wants & needs and is here to help. We even go above and beyond with our Delivereach premium service by not just waiting, but including purchase & delivery and even shipping if you're out of state! Whatever the event or product, we show up & do the work so you don't have to, freeing you up for important things like...LIFE.
– Robert Samuel is a professional time-killer. As the founder and CEO of Same Ole Line Dudes (or SOLD) in New York, he'll keep your place in line to ensure you get your hands on "iPhones, the latest Air Jordans, or the hottest Broadway tix in town." SOLD has even helped New Yorkers with brunch waitlists, sample sales, and passports. And because he's paid for his time—$25 for the first hour, and $10 for every half-hour thereafter—long lines are likely a lot more welcome to him than they are to the rest of us. In fact, Samuel recently made nearly $1,000 when he spent 48 hours at the very head of the line for the iPhone 6, reports Salon, which calls the business part of the "Uber-ization of everything." Since starting SOLD after getting laid off in 2012, Samuel now has 15 employees. He says he makes up to $1,000 a week, though the New York Times notes that because his business is "cyclical," he currently also has a full-time job as a security guard. The line-waiting doesn't always sound pleasant. SOLD employee Adonis Porch tells Salon he's had to wait in hot weather, freezing weather, rain, sleet, and snow. Samuel says that while his customers can be superwealthy, most are just "everyday" people for whom time is a real commodity, reports CNBC. "Moms hire me because they can't wait in lines in the mornings. They have to take the kids off to school." Though in that wealthy vein, the Times recounts the time a group from the Middle East had nine SOLD workers wait in line for Cronuts. Whatever he's doing, his advice: "The rule is always respect the order of things. First come first served." (This line stretched more than a mile last November.)