The essay repeatedly uses the word "power" in the context of who is trying to see with whom to establish relationship, over whom to exert power over and over whom to ultimately establish control through use of "rhetorical" linguistics. He uses vocabulary only a "Professor of Communication", as he so deftly informs us, would understand. Mr. Lunceford repeatedly cites sources of whom we have never heard who are apparently experts on the nuances of communication. It becomes obvious that those of us from the South have severe deficiencies in this arena and are unable to recognize proper relationship boundaries, especially when entering a restaurant.
Apparently being mistakenly called "honey" by a waitress who did not recognize the man's true character nor realize he certainly isn't anyone's honey was just too much for Brett. He does acknowledge that his elementary teacher wife uses the term "honey" when address her precious 2nd-grade charges who live in the South, but only since she has moved to the South. The move, in large part, might be an attempt to get away from the heartless, criminal, robotic emotion types from Pennsylvania and the West Coast. He does correctly cite Mark Bazer who says that the use of "honey" by waitresses to to make the customer feel at home. So again, the assertion must be made that Lunceford has been mistakenly called "honey" by waitresses because they don't realize that they don't want to make him feel at home, but rather actually desire that he return home.
Brett also dutifully quote Robert Sutton and Anat Rafaeli as stating that waitress (and presumably chauvinist male waiters) are seeking to earn tips with friendliness, something he apparently doesn't possess nor care much about learning. Now, if only waiters and waitresses (who would not be able to even read his verbose critique of them) at the low-end restaurants patronized by perfesser Lunceford who with his school teacher wife, who have the means to eat at finer establishments with staff appropriately educated on how to communicate with those who have a completely distorted view of their communicative abilities, knew to ask, "Are you Brett Lunceford?", they would NOT call him honey and the problem would be solved.
All of this brings to mind the Dunning-Kruger effect. It basically describes someone as believing they have skills and abilities and that everyone around them is incompetent or of lesser skill and can not even be taught any differently. Lunceford, perhaps you might try to learn to be nice to the people waiting on you and don't worry what terms they use to address you unless use a pejorative term. And, what do we from the South know? We can barely talk and certainly can't write anything of substance.
You should publish that, if only to tick “Dr” Lunceford off.