The restaurant business, particular back-of-house, is particular bad in this respect. Working conditions in most kitchens are horrible - long hours, uncomfortable environments, physical demanding, often dangerous and horribly underpaid with few benefits.

But yet, people do it. They know they are getting screwed over, they know they are often destroying their bodies, but they keep on doing it. Because people who want to cook are truly passionate about it. Cooking for someone is an incredible intimate and loving act; one that no amount of corporatism or job function abstraction can dispel.

It is an act in which the symbolism and the functionalism are inseparable. When you are serving food, you are literally nourishing people. You are literally providing the substance they need to survive. You are literally crafting, with your own hands, the matter that will become a literal part of another human being.

Such a primal act naturally stirs a lot of passion, but likewise, as you say, great opportunities for abuse. Most kitchen employees don't make terribly much more than minimum wage. In expensive cities like San Francisco or New York, it's almost impossible to make a living wage. Even in high-end restaurants.