8 ms·

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

91 points by jkuria 7y ago

CaliforniaKarl 7y ago
In-n-Out is another chain I know of that is privately owned, and I wonder how many similarities there off. Off-hand, I imagine not as much. I bet the chain is small enough that their ‘support networks’ are much denser. But in the other hand, whenever I’ve been able to identify a ‘manager-type’ at In-n-Out, they always seem to be as involved as everyone else.
- greedo 7y ago
  Store manager pay at In N Out is pretty high as well.
  - mullen 7y ago
    In N Out is based out of California, so the Manager pay is pretty good, even for Southern California.
seanhunter 7y ago
An interesting fact is that disaster relief agencies use how quickly waffle house is back up and running as an indicator for how badly hit a region has been by some natural disaster (hurricane, flood etc) because their disaster preparedness is so good. Some details here https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1168860400319946752.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1168860400319946752.html and elsewhere. They clearly take planning seriously.
gl00pp 7y ago
Who the eff is going to register to read a fkn article?
- QualityReboot 7y ago
  https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox
- kalleboo 7y ago
  The "web" link Google loophole worked for me
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- reallydontask 7y ago
  You've probably gone over your quota of free articles. I didn't have to register. It is an interesting hagiography? of the chain
gadders 7y ago
What is the current workaround to read for WSJ articles please? The Web button above isn't working.
- coremoff 7y ago
  If you're using Firefox, one possibility is https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox
- scarface74 7y ago
  If you are logged into Facebook. https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/if-you-can-manage-a-waffle-house-you-can-manage-anything-11572667205?mod=rsswn https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/if-you-can-manage-a-waffle-...
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  Pay them...?
  - gadders 7y ago
    What is this madness :-) But point taken...
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Forget Me for Chrome does the trick. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forget-me-clean-history-c/gekpdemielcmiiiackmeoppdgaggjgda https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forget-me-clean-hi...
- gpvos 7y ago
  http://archive.is/QEes8 http://archive.is/QEes8 It doesn't always work, but this time archive.is did the trick for me.
nikhizzle 7y ago
One quick way my wife and I use to judge any kind of restaurant or hotel is by watching the manager. We’ve consistently noticed in places where the manager is doing their job in addition to the day to day work, the place has great service and provides quality. We find often at the places we like best, high end or hole in the wall, the manager or owner is serving people, or cooking or generally getting things done. The converse is also true. At places we get bad service, or bad food the manager is normally in one place bossing the troops.
- wil421 7y ago
  In my experience Waffle houses don’t always have a managed. Sometimes late at night they only have a cook and one waiter. A good manager should be able to fill in on any position, expo, cook, hostess, or helping waitstaff. The problem is they could get stuck at peak hours helping in the back and not seen very much.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    There is no hidden “back” at the Waffle House. You would see the manager cooking or washing dishes right in front of you.
7thaccount 7y ago
I love eating at Waffle House and an always humbled by how hard the employees seem to work under what appears to be absolute chaos, but my order always comes quick and the cooking occurs right in front of you, so you can see everything is clean. It's crazy how there is a person who reads off the ticket and multiple cooks who immediately respond (all-star, bacon, drop hash brown covered, scrambled, waffle)
- ethbro 7y ago
  Hint: Look for the single, colored "order calling" tile on the other side of the counter, and how the upcoming order plates are set There's a wicked smart method to the chaos.
  - joezydeco 7y ago
    The marking system is ingenious as well: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickgray/378694469 https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickgray/378694469
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Every employee has well defined and actionable tasks that they just have to do (with redundancy in some key areas). As long as they do them everything works. This is what a well refined process looks like. Figuring that stuff out and keeping the process optimized is part of what those franchise fees pay for.
scarface74 7y ago
The article states that a manager at Waffle House starts out at “only” $45K. Most Waffle Houses are in the south. You can do ok making 45K a year. Yes there were cases of racism at Waffle House and I think they addressed them pretty well on a corporate level. I’m Black and live in a very White part of town. I walk into some Waffle House’s playing country music in the juke box, with pickup trucks plastered with MAGA stickers and have always been treated well. I have found none of the stereo types to be true.
- wccrawford 7y ago
  $45k is nice, but for a manager doing a job so hard that this article says they can "manage anything", it seems like they're woefully underpaid. With their skills, they should be able to command a lot more pay somewhere else. If all of this is true, I'd expect to see more WH managers move to higher paying jobs and WH have a harder time finding qualified managers, meaning they'd be forced to pay more. Apparently the article claims they could get $117k, which is a lot different. Even with some hefty exaggeration, that would mean they are indeed woefully underpaid.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    If as the article claims they don’t overwork their employees and they work 40 hours a week, they may be doing a lot of different things but they aren’t “overworked”.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    Waffle House managers, in my experience, are heavily sourced internally. (Or at least used to be) This ensures you have a pipeline of new managers when someone moves on, as well as benefiting from far more experience than hiring externally. Furthermore, while there may be higher paying jobs in a nearby city, there certainly aren't in the same area. There are Waffle Houses at the intersection of two state highways. Which is to say, places where they're the only business there.
    - wronglebowski 7y ago
Stunting 7y ago
I was a waiter on the night shift in a Baton Rouge Waffle House. Adored my time there, learned a lot and made enough money to pursue my dream career. Among them: - You can be an asshole but as long as you follow protocol things will run smoothly. Had lots of arguments with cooks about whatever was happening, but if you stand in the right spot and call the orders correctly, and mark the plate the right way, your food came out when it was suppose to, the way it was suppose to. - When it comes to increasing tips, Charm beats good service. At 2 am, all the drunk people enjoy chaos and jokes more than getting their orders correct. - the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last. - security is only there for the appearance of safety. If a group of drunkards starts a brawl, the one hired hand isn’t going to stop them. Call the cops, clear out as many breakables and weapons as you can, and get the onlookers to stand back is the most you can do. - Getting yelled isn’t as bad as you think it is. You can still operate in chaos if you follow your routine - number one way to increase tips is volume, and the number one way to increase volume to your section is to wipe the table whenever they’re coming through the door.
- joezydeco 7y ago
  That wiping trick is brilliant! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
- close04 7y ago
  > the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last. That works better for the customer (vs. the waiter) than for the waiter (vs. the cook). The customer has the leverage of leaving the place just as the food is served, never coming back, not leaving any tip, and/or writing scathing reviews for the restaurant. Almost none of this is useful to the waiter in the relationship with the cook. In some places even management avoids pissing off the cooks as they may be the most critical part of operating a restaurant business.
  - 7y ago
lordleft 7y ago
It is a dream of mine to go to a Waffle House, ever since that Anthony Bourdain episode -- the food looked delicious.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tootie 7y ago
  It's the most American American thing there is.
- jedimastert 7y ago
  I cannot recommend it enough. It's incredibly greasy, so be warned if your gut isn't used to that kind of abuse, but it's just good food
- garfij 7y ago
  Can confirm that if you do, follow his script. Get the patty melt and a pecan waffle and you'll be happy.
droithomme 7y ago
I request a paywall workaround. Both previous known workarounds - Private mode and clicking through from Google - no longer work.
- garfij 7y ago
  Searching for the URL on facebook and clicking through from there should still work (if you have facebook)
ARandomerDude 7y ago
> Since she graduated from Harvard LAST YEAR... [emphasis added] Pardon my skepticism, but a person with less than one year in the professional workforce can't be the standard of measure undergirding the claim "if you can manage a Waffle House, you can manage anything." Was there more substance in the paywalled section that I missed?
- closetohome 7y ago
  Nope. It dropped her entirely after the first couple paragraphs and just talked about Waffle House. And three jobs in a year does seem a little high, even for tech.
wil421 7y ago
Waffle House used to offer all Georgia Tech graduates a manager position. Not sure if they still do but they certainly did from the 70s until the 2000s.

91 points by jkuria 7y ago

In-n-Out is another chain I know of that is privately owned, and I wonder how many similarities there off. Off-hand, I imagine not as much. I bet the chain is small enough that their ‘support networks’ are much denser. But in the other hand, whenever I’ve been able to identify a ‘manager-type’ at In-n-Out, they always seem to be as involved as everyone else.

greedo 7y ago
Store manager pay at In N Out is pretty high as well.
- mullen 7y ago
  In N Out is based out of California, so the Manager pay is pretty good, even for Southern California.

seanhunter 7y ago

An interesting fact is that disaster relief agencies use how quickly waffle house is back up and running as an indicator for how badly hit a region has been by some natural disaster (hurricane, flood etc) because their disaster preparedness is so good. Some details here https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1168860400319946752.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1168860400319946752.html and elsewhere. They clearly take planning seriously.

gl00pp 7y ago

Who the eff is going to register to read a fkn article?

QualityReboot 7y ago
https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox
kalleboo 7y ago
The "web" link Google loophole worked for me
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
reallydontask 7y ago
You've probably gone over your quota of free articles. I didn't have to register. It is an interesting hagiography? of the chain

gadders 7y ago

What is the current workaround to read for WSJ articles please? The Web button above isn't working.

coremoff 7y ago
If you're using Firefox, one possibility is https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox
scarface74 7y ago
If you are logged into Facebook. https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/if-you-can-manage-a-waffle-house-you-can-manage-anything-11572667205?mod=rsswn https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/if-you-can-manage-a-waffle-...
hyperbovine 7y ago
Pay them...?
- gadders 7y ago
  What is this madness :-) But point taken...
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Forget Me for Chrome does the trick. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forget-me-clean-history-c/gekpdemielcmiiiackmeoppdgaggjgda https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forget-me-clean-hi...
gpvos 7y ago
http://archive.is/QEes8 http://archive.is/QEes8 It doesn't always work, but this time archive.is did the trick for me.

nikhizzle 7y ago

One quick way my wife and I use to judge any kind of restaurant or hotel is by watching the manager. We’ve consistently noticed in places where the manager is doing their job in addition to the day to day work, the place has great service and provides quality. We find often at the places we like best, high end or hole in the wall, the manager or owner is serving people, or cooking or generally getting things done. The converse is also true. At places we get bad service, or bad food the manager is normally in one place bossing the troops.

wil421 7y ago
In my experience Waffle houses don’t always have a managed. Sometimes late at night they only have a cook and one waiter. A good manager should be able to fill in on any position, expo, cook, hostess, or helping waitstaff. The problem is they could get stuck at peak hours helping in the back and not seen very much.
- scarface74 7y ago
  There is no hidden “back” at the Waffle House. You would see the manager cooking or washing dishes right in front of you.

7thaccount 7y ago

I love eating at Waffle House and an always humbled by how hard the employees seem to work under what appears to be absolute chaos, but my order always comes quick and the cooking occurs right in front of you, so you can see everything is clean. It's crazy how there is a person who reads off the ticket and multiple cooks who immediately respond (all-star, bacon, drop hash brown covered, scrambled, waffle)

ethbro 7y ago
Hint: Look for the single, colored "order calling" tile on the other side of the counter, and how the upcoming order plates are set There's a wicked smart method to the chaos.
- joezydeco 7y ago
  The marking system is ingenious as well: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickgray/378694469 https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickgray/378694469
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Every employee has well defined and actionable tasks that they just have to do (with redundancy in some key areas). As long as they do them everything works. This is what a well refined process looks like. Figuring that stuff out and keeping the process optimized is part of what those franchise fees pay for.

scarface74 7y ago

The article states that a manager at Waffle House starts out at “only” $45K. Most Waffle Houses are in the south. You can do ok making 45K a year. Yes there were cases of racism at Waffle House and I think they addressed them pretty well on a corporate level. I’m Black and live in a very White part of town. I walk into some Waffle House’s playing country music in the juke box, with pickup trucks plastered with MAGA stickers and have always been treated well. I have found none of the stereo types to be true.

wccrawford 7y ago
$45k is nice, but for a manager doing a job so hard that this article says they can "manage anything", it seems like they're woefully underpaid. With their skills, they should be able to command a lot more pay somewhere else. If all of this is true, I'd expect to see more WH managers move to higher paying jobs and WH have a harder time finding qualified managers, meaning they'd be forced to pay more. Apparently the article claims they could get $117k, which is a lot different. Even with some hefty exaggeration, that would mean they are indeed woefully underpaid.
- scarface74 7y ago
  If as the article claims they don’t overwork their employees and they work 40 hours a week, they may be doing a lot of different things but they aren’t “overworked”.
- ethbro 7y ago
  Waffle House managers, in my experience, are heavily sourced internally. (Or at least used to be) This ensures you have a pipeline of new managers when someone moves on, as well as benefiting from far more experience than hiring externally. Furthermore, while there may be higher paying jobs in a nearby city, there certainly aren't in the same area. There are Waffle Houses at the intersection of two state highways. Which is to say, places where they're the only business there.
  - wronglebowski 7y ago

Stunting 7y ago

I was a waiter on the night shift in a Baton Rouge Waffle House. Adored my time there, learned a lot and made enough money to pursue my dream career. Among them: - You can be an asshole but as long as you follow protocol things will run smoothly. Had lots of arguments with cooks about whatever was happening, but if you stand in the right spot and call the orders correctly, and mark the plate the right way, your food came out when it was suppose to, the way it was suppose to. - When it comes to increasing tips, Charm beats good service. At 2 am, all the drunk people enjoy chaos and jokes more than getting their orders correct. - the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last. - security is only there for the appearance of safety. If a group of drunkards starts a brawl, the one hired hand isn’t going to stop them. Call the cops, clear out as many breakables and weapons as you can, and get the onlookers to stand back is the most you can do. - Getting yelled isn’t as bad as you think it is. You can still operate in chaos if you follow your routine - number one way to increase tips is volume, and the number one way to increase volume to your section is to wipe the table whenever they’re coming through the door.

joezydeco 7y ago
That wiping trick is brilliant! Thanks for sharing your experiences.
close04 7y ago
> the person who decides when your food is served holds 100% of the power. If you’re going to be belligerent, you’re gonna wait to eat. If you’re gonna irritate the cooks, you’re gonna lose tips cause your food comes up last. That works better for the customer (vs. the waiter) than for the waiter (vs. the cook). The customer has the leverage of leaving the place just as the food is served, never coming back, not leaving any tip, and/or writing scathing reviews for the restaurant. Almost none of this is useful to the waiter in the relationship with the cook. In some places even management avoids pissing off the cooks as they may be the most critical part of operating a restaurant business.
- 7y ago

lordleft 7y ago

It is a dream of mine to go to a Waffle House, ever since that Anthony Bourdain episode -- the food looked delicious.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tootie 7y ago
It's the most American American thing there is.
jedimastert 7y ago
I cannot recommend it enough. It's incredibly greasy, so be warned if your gut isn't used to that kind of abuse, but it's just good food
garfij 7y ago
Can confirm that if you do, follow his script. Get the patty melt and a pecan waffle and you'll be happy.

droithomme 7y ago

I request a paywall workaround. Both previous known workarounds - Private mode and clicking through from Google - no longer work.

garfij 7y ago
Searching for the URL on facebook and clicking through from there should still work (if you have facebook)

ARandomerDude 7y ago

> Since she graduated from Harvard LAST YEAR... [emphasis added] Pardon my skepticism, but a person with less than one year in the professional workforce can't be the standard of measure undergirding the claim "if you can manage a Waffle House, you can manage anything." Was there more substance in the paywalled section that I missed?

closetohome 7y ago
Nope. It dropped her entirely after the first couple paragraphs and just talked about Waffle House. And three jobs in a year does seem a little high, even for tech.

wil421 7y ago

Waffle House used to offer all Georgia Tech graduates a manager position. Not sure if they still do but they certainly did from the 70s until the 2000s.