service worker doesn't skip waiting state

I'm still doing experiments in order to master service workers, and I'm facing a problem, probably because of my lack of expertise in JavaScript and service workers.

The problem happens when I want the new service worker to skipWaiting() using postMessage(). If I show a popup with a button and I bind a call to postMessage() there, everything works. If I call postMessage() directly, it doesn't work. It's a race condition because SOMETIMES it works, but I can't identify the race condition.

BTW, the postMessage() call WORKS, the service worker is logging what it should when getting the message:

// Listen to messages from clients.
self.addEventListener('message', event => {
    switch(event.data) {
        case 'skipWaiting': self.skipWaiting(); console.log('I skipped waiting... EXTRA');
            break;
    }
}); 

Here is the code. The important bit is on the if (registration.waiting) conditional. The uncommented code works, the commented one doesn't:

// Register service worker.
if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) {
    // Helpers to show and hide the update toast.
    let hideUpdateToast = () => {
        document.getElementById('update_available').style.visibility = 'hidden';
    };

    let showUpdateToast = (serviceworker) => {
        document.getElementById('update_available').style.visibility = 'visible';
        document.getElementById('force_install').onclick = () => {
            serviceworker.postMessage('skipWaiting');
            hideUpdateToast();
        };
        document.getElementById('close').onclick = () => hideUpdateToast();
    };

    window.addEventListener('load', () => {

        let refreshing = false;
        navigator.serviceWorker.addEventListener('controllerchange', () => {
            if (refreshing) return;
            refreshing = true;
            window.location.reload();
        });

        navigator.serviceWorker.register('/sw.js').then(registration => {
            // A new service worker has been fetched, watch for state changes.
            //
            // This event is fired EVERY TIME a service worker is fetched and
            // succesfully parsed and goes into 'installing' state. This
            // happens, too, the very first time the page is visited, the very
            // first time a service worker is fetched for this page, when the
            // page doesn't have a controller, but in that case there's no new
            // version available and the notification must not appear.
            //
            // So, if the page doesn't have a controller, no notification shown.
            registration.addEventListener('updatefound', () => {
                // return;  // FIXME
                registration.installing.onstatechange = function () {  // No arrow function because 'this' is needed.
                    if (this.state == 'installed') {
                        if (!navigator.serviceWorker.controller) {
                            console.log('First install for this service worker.');
                        } else {
                            console.log('New service worker is ready to activate.');
                            showUpdateToast(this);
                        }
                    }
                };
            });

            // If a service worker is in 'waiting' state, then maybe the user
            // dismissed the notification when the service worker was in the
            // 'installing' state or maybe the 'updatefound' event was fired
            // before it could be listened, or something like that. Anyway, in
            // that case the notification has to be shown again.
            //
            if (registration.waiting) {
                console.log('New service worker is waiting.');
                // showUpdateToast(registration.waiting);

                // The above works, but this DOESN'T WORK.
                registration.waiting.postMessage('skipWaiting');
            }

        }).catch(error => {
            console.log('Service worker registration failed!');
            console.log(error);
        });
    });
}

Why does the indirect call using a button onclick event works, but calling postMessage() doesn't?

I'm absolutely at a loss and I bet the answer is simple and I'm just too blind to see it.

Thanks a lot in advance.