TL;DR Transphobic, possibly homophobic, takes advantage of minors and attempts to work them illegal hours, workers often ignore health codes and violate them frequently, and, in my experience, the food was mid. Forget about the ambiance--it's easily spoilt when you notice a single child doing the majority of the work.
During my tenure at Moscow Sonic Drive-In, Lindsey Boyle was my General Manager, but it is my understanding that, after she tried to punish a manager for transphobic behaviours, she was removed from her position at Sonic and was summarily replaced by said manager.
To put it simply, I am an 18-year-old, transgender and homosexual male. Boyle promised a workplace free of prejudice, bias, and bigotry, which she did her best to maintain. It is through no fault of her own that Sonic now employs a bitterly transphobic 20-or-21-year-old male in her stead.
Ryker (I am unaware of his surname) was more or less the most problematic coworker of mine. A manager at the time, he made numerous mistakes on my gender identity and pronouns despite not knowing me as anything other than a man, and would often react poorly to my gentle corrections; one notable moment had him swinging on the drive-thru delivering door and screaming. Since then, I have learnt that he has continued transphobic behaviours, although I'm not privy to specifics. Indeed, Boyle attempted to file a CCE against Sonic and urged me to report on my experiences of transphobia through Ryker.
In addition to the transphobia that I dealt with, I, a 16-year-old child, still in highschool at the time, worked 42 hours a week. I was in highschool full time at 35 hours a week, thereby working more than some of my own teachers. Due to my hours at the job, I am able to say that I'm well-versed in Idaho child labour laws and can say with confidence that my hours weren't *technically* illegal--until they tried to schedule me an additional 4 hours a week without prior notification, which were scheduled during school hours. Thankfully, Idaho has the foresight to make it illegal to work children during school hours, else I would have had to leave school early in order to fulfill these excessive hours. In addition, I was scheduled 24-hour weekends, working a 12-hour shift on Saturday and Sunday.
Despite working full-time, I got no benefits, no raises, no recognition, nothing. I was by and far one of the best employees there, getting nothing but high praise from the owner of the Crush franchise himself, whilst other employees made at least one or two other mistakes. In addition to being one of their best employees, I was one of their *only* employees. One memorable evening that sticks out to me would have included myself and a manager, Noah, serving hundreds of customers over the period of eight or so hours with no other help, had an employee, Ethan Ramon, offered to stay past his shift and help out. We were almost slaughtered with three, and I shudder to think of how bad things would have been had we not had the help of Ramon.
Moreover, on top of all the injustices that I had to face whilst working here, I was, more often than not, one of the only carhops working, if not *the* only carhop. One moment that sticks out to me is from a woman by the name of Kensington, who stopped me mid-delivery to condemn my employers for how they ran Sonic. The restaurant is proud to offer the slogan, "out the door in under four", as in, it takes less than four minutes for one's food to be delivered. When I went out to meet Kensington, she confided that her food had been well over half an hour late--much like the other two times she had been to Sonic within my tenure. In addition to the lateness, she noted that all three instances had me as the *only* carhop. She had yet to see a carhop other than myself working there--and that included just driving past. Indeed, she was uncertain of how many other carhops there were and was worried that I was the only one employed. When I assured her that that wasn't the case, she still implored me to tell my boss to close the parking lot. Oftentimes, I would bounce from car to car in a full parking lot that was constantly having more and more people try to enter it, all by myself. There were a total of, if I am recollecting correctly, twelve lot spaces for cars to park, which I tended to serve without help, and in all sorts of weather. That year, 2021, had a great many heat storms, which are characterised by frequent strikes of lightning. I recall one evening with a full parking lot, a beautifully darkening sky, little to no help from the other carhops--and a great many bolts of lightning. One car had a young girl frightened of lightning, convinced that she would be struck by it, and I laughed and helped to calm her down with logic--all the while worried about how I was exposed to the elements, in and out, in a lightning storm.
Finally, I would like to critique the staunch inability to allow workers to leave once their shift was over. read more
