‘It’s every day’: Redmond Sonic customers take wait-time, shortage frustrations out on workers

(Update: Adding comments from Redmond Sonic asst. manage, crew leader)

'He hurt my hand and spit at me, and I didn't do anything'

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- A heated discussion at the Redmond Sonic Drive-In over ice cream, involving curses and aggressive language, led to an employee giving her two-week notice and leaving the job.

Blade Shockey, the assistant manager at the Sonic in Redmond, said Monday its not every customer, but a negative interaction happens at least once a day. 

"I don't know -- I just assume they're having a bad day,” Shockey said. “Really, because it's every day, it's somebody new."

He said his restaurant, like a lot of places, is understaffed.

"My kitchens are down, so if I open up all these (drive-in) stalls, no one is going to get their food for ages,” Shockey said. 

But it's not just an employee shortage.

"I'm almost out of big meat. I'm completely out of tater tots right now, not a drop of tater tots in there." Shockey said. "I've got to go get mayonnaise and lettuce. I need to buy more cheese. I'm out of Sprite. I'm completely out of cups. I've got no large cups. So yeah, it's a whole lot -- it's a whole list."

He said delivery truck delays are becoming common.

"Everything's out of our control," Shockey said. "We’re just doing -- if we don't get a truck, the truck doesn't come, we don't have the stuff. They understand that, though -- most of the time."

Shockey says over the weekend, when the store ran out of ice cream, one customer didn't quite understand.

"'F- you, screw off, I'm never coming back here' -- that kind of rubbed our window lady pretty wrong."

He said the young woman who was yelled at quit the next day.

Crew Manager Grace Rivers still works at Sonic, and has for more than a year.

She said she's seen plenty of employees come and go.

"There's been a few times customers have been, like, mean. And so a lot of people will leave because of the customers or just because they don't want to work or anything."

She said she's had customers curse, grab and even spit on her.

"Kept trying to think, 'What did I do wrong? I didn't do anything bad,'" Rivers said. " And I go home later, and I started crying, and I was like -- I didn't do anything. He hurt my hand and spit at me, and I didn't do anything."

Shockey says he normally steps in when he sees an interaction that gets aggressive, but really prefers when it doesn't.

"I appreciate the people who understand, you know? The people who understand, they are what makes our day, for sure," he said.

And the Redmond restaurant's troubles are far from unique. Sonic in Redmond has 10 open positions, mostly in the kitchen with one manager opening. And they're not alone. The Sonic in Madras has 20 openings and the one in Bend has 25 openings.