If You Can Manage a Waffle House, You Can Manage Anything

I never suggested they're perfect or that they'll even bring direct benefits to the customer but they are still at the customer's disposal and can server as leverage. A waiter has little recourse against the cook other than to find a way to make up or quit.

> the customer has a binary choice

This is all I was highlighting. The customer has a (relatively easy) choice compared to the waiter's choice against a cook.

I did leave at least once after waiting for about an hour for a regular dish, especially after seeing that everyone else at the tables around us were getting served. Whether this was an argument between the waiter and cook mattered less to me. Anecdotally, I know plenty of other people who also did it in similar situations. So while I don't know how widespread this is it's not just a viable measure, it's also plausible in practice.

And I'm never one to argue or be anything but nice to people that make and serve my food. After waiting for an hour the tip incentive for any of the staff is all but gone (they probably guess they won't get any) so the service level is less likely to suddenly shoot up. All you're doing is escalation of commitment [0]. I personally try to cut my losses when an evening already feels ruined. There's always a backup plan.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment

> Chances are most people would stay.

Chances are most people would tip even if their experience wasn't that great (saying this both as client and former waiter in a different life). But tipping is still a perfectly good leverage against bad service. Leverage isn't judged by how many people use it but how effective it is.

Unfortunately for the waiter there's little to no leverage in a conflict with the cook. I worked as one in my teens. We were the last in the food chain: arguing with the customers or cooks was terminal because the boss could not afford to lose either one over an ill-tempered waiter, especially when we were seen as "a dime a dozen".

[%] The measure of leaving when the food is served is not the most effective because in many run of the mill restaurants it just gets recycled in the kitchen. Not much is lost from the restaurant's perspective while the client may have lost more time. In some cases though where the dish can't be recycled it could come out of everyone's paycheck (cooks and waiters alike).

Start at McDonald’s, move to Panera and receive a nice Quality of life bump, then move onto something even more stable and rewarding like Trader Joe’s or Costco.

The other side of this is those that are very capable but very deficient in other areas, they started working at Waffle House since they don’t fit into normal society as one would think of it and happen to land there. Since the barrier to break into these jobs is nonexistent they do find a “home” and lack the ability to ever grow or move on, for better or worse.