I witnessed a scenario this weekend that I've only read about on this sub, but never have personally seen it happen. I thought it would belong here.
Two waitresses walked out mid-shift after having enough of their management. My wife and I have went to this restaurant for the last three weekends, Saturday mornings. We had the same waitress every time, very nice lady and very friendly to our daughter, definitely made our dining experience better. Just yesterday, as we were eating, she came up to us and told us she was walking out. She was being accused of stealing tips off of tables. She said they have video of the woman who actually did it, but since our waitress was friends with the woman, they assumed she was in on it too. Now obviously I don't know the full story here, but my viewpoint is maybe you shouldn't accuse your staff of stealing when you already have video of the actual thief. On top of this, she mentioned that almost every shift of hers is a double, essentially opening the restaurant and closing it down. She said she wished she could see her kids more.
So she and another woman were sick of it and walked out, leaving a packed restaurant two servers short during a lunch rush. She told us she had a job offer lined up already for a different restaurant nearby with better hours, pay, etc. This restaurant stops serving food at 4pm, so she gets to see her kids more every day. She gave us our check and we watched her walk out, no notice to their management at all. We were cheering her on and were happy to see her standing up for herself.
Not only did this restaurant lose at least two servers, they lost business from us as well. I know it's a drop in the bucket but still. We'll gladly drive the extra few miles to this other restaurant if we want to eat. Hopefully this story serves as a reminder that you can leave a shitty job behind with no notice, you can ruin a manager's week or month by leaving them high and dry. Expect nothing but excellent treatment from managers and when you don't get it, rally your colleagues together and make demands. If you don't see improvement, start a chain reaction and leave. Maybe perform shitty so they fire you and collect unemployment. Leave bad reviews online, hurt their business. Bad management may make you feel like you're worthless, but without you they cannot function. Hit them where it hurts: their time and effort and cost to hiring and training someone new.