THE idea came to Giovanni Cafaro two
years ago when, like millions of his compatriots on any given day, he was
waiting in a queue in Milan to pay a bill. “It occurred to me I could do the
same for others,” he says.
Mr Cafaro, who had just lost his
job, set about his new enterprise. He handed out flyers advertising his
services and found several dozen clients. In the process, he has created a new
profession: that of codista (queuer).
According to Codacons, a consumer
group, Italians spend on average 400 hours a year queuing. The annual time
wasted is worth €40 billion ($44 billion), it estimates. For decades, rich
Italians have hired people to stand in line on their behalf to pay bills, send
off parcels and deal with everyday bureaucracy.
Mr Cafaro has given the occupation a
legal footing, with its own standardized contract, minimum pay (€10 an hour
before deductions) and access to state-run industrial accident insurance (“in
case, say, a codista trips on the stairs of a government office,” he explains).
Mr Cafaro offers a five-hour course, which he gives over Skype. This includes
learning the tedious requirements of central and local government departments
for documents, signatures and charges.
Successive Italian governments have
tried to cut the queues. From March 15th members of the public can apply for an
identification number giving them online access to public services.
But it is not just Italy’s complex
bureaucracy that keeps people waiting. Italian idiosyncrasies, which reflect a
certain fiscal timidity, also play a role. Italy has one of the lowest rates of
non-cash transactions in Europe. “Paying in cash is very widespread and people
are generally reluctant to use either credit cards or direct debit,” says Mr
Cafaro. This is consistent with the fact that Italy has one of the largest
shadow economies in the rich world.
edited from The Economist
