When you go to Sonic you think all of the girls are sweet girls with their pony tails and their sweet smiles, but all smiles disappear once they go through the door inside the store. The outside of sonic may seem upbeat with an old school feel, but once you hit the door and walk inside it's pretty much hell. In the summer time it's just as hot inside as it is outside. The air conditioner can't keep up with everyone walking in and out of the store. If I could carhop naked I probably would. In the winter it's freakin cold. We have to wear at least 3 layers of clothes to be comfortable. Sonic isn't what it seems on the outside on the inside. We have to carhop in all of the elements. The world around us could be on fire, but if there are customers outside, we'd be hopping in our khaki shorts and blue polos and we would have to do it with a smile on our face. We deal with a lot. Sonic is a cross between a fast food restaurant and a sit down restaurant so we have to deal with customers who treat us like we're stupid and uneducated working at a fast food restaurant and needy customers who send you off to get them one thing at a time.
We face all of the elements. Rain, shine, snow, tornado warnings, we work through it all, so please, when it's 100 degrees outside, turn your car off or face an air vent at us. When there's a parking lot full of running vehicles it's easily 10 degrees hotter, plus we're running around with trays full of hot food. I start sweating as soon as I hit the door to go outside. Please have some sympathy. Don't send me inside 500 times for ketchup and ranch, tell me that you need that stuff when you order or tell me as soon as I get to your car so I only have to make one trip. We also work for tips, so a couple dollars here and there would be nice too. It's my job to please the customers, and only getting paid $5 an hour doesn't quite pay the bills.
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Sometimes our hair is a mess and we don't hardly have any makeup on. Chances are, if we look like that we just worked an insanely long or busy shift or we don't feel good. Usually we start out with our makeup on fleek and our hair put up neatly in a long ponytail, but by the end of our shift we have makeup running down our face and our hair is frizzy and in a bun. We work long shifts. I work a 10-12 hour shift at least once a week, so I work through lunch, happy hour, dinner, and half price shakes, so by the end of my shift I'm looking pretty ratchet. Don't judge me. On another note, at the beginning of my shift, don't flirt with me and give me your number. I'm taken. I don't work at sonic to meet boys, I work at sonic to make money, so instead of giving me your number, how about a couple dollars? I'd definitely appreciate it more than your number. Plus you can always come back and tip me some more and talk to me if you really want to try to get with me. Do you really think I'm going to get with some random guy I carhopped to one time? No.
Most of us are are college students or high school students, so we're not stupid. Don't treat us like we're uneducated. If we didn't understand you the first time it was probably because you were talking really low, from the passenger side, or you simply can't order correctly. Don't tell me your whole order and then tell me you want everything large. Then I have to go back through your whole order and re-ring everything back up which makes me take longer to take your order. That also means that when I ask you to repeat your order, don't yell your order to me, if I couldn't hear you, I would ask you to speak up. I probably couldn't hear you because of something going on on my end of the board.
Oh and let's just talk about the drive thru for just a second. I personally think the drive thru is the most pointless and annoying thing sonic has ever done. Sonic is Americas Drive in. The whole restaurant is a drive thru, so why do we need a drive thru window? To be completely honest, it is not faster. Drive thru orders do not come before regular orders. If someone ordered before you, then their order will be made before you no matter where you were. On that note, if you're going to order food, just park in a stall. All of our food is made fresh, so if you order an order of wings, you're going to be holding up the drive thru line for 10 minutes when you could've just parked in a stall and waited the same amount of time. The only thing the drive thru is good for is short drink orders. That's it.
Let's talk about half price shakes for a second. Shakes are only half price after 8pm, not during happy hour. Happy hour is drinks only, not ice cream. Half price shakes only includes shakes and Malts, not drinks and blasts. Sonic blasts are completely different than shakes. Shakes are thin, blasts are thick ice cream with candy in them, so don't yell at me when I tell you your order is $20 for 3 blasts and you ordered after 8pm. Change those blasts to shakes and I'll gladly bring your total down to $8, but I'm not going to half price your blasts. That's not how it works. Yelling at me about prices isn't going to help the situation at all. In fact it's just going to piss me off and you're going to have deal with my manager and potentially get kicked off the parking lot. I don't make the prices, so it's not going to do any good yelling at me about it. If you don't want to pay that much for something order off of the value menu or go to McDonalds, so what's more important? The quality of your food or the price?
Sonic really isn't a horrible place to work, but working long shifts in the heat or freezing cold can take a toll on us carhops so just be patient with us if we seem irritable. Be considerate when it's 100 degrees outside and I have sweat pouring down my face and I still have a smile on. Trust me, I'm only smiling on the outside, but I promise to serve you with the best customer service possible if you'll just be patient with me. Don't make me sit outside your car while you're texting on your phone in your air conditioned car. Just take your order and give me your money so I can go back inside to the air conditioning. And remember, we don't get paid minimum wage, so we do work for tips.
