If you were to look up the definition of "toxic positivity" in the dictionary, you'd find the WebFX logo front and center. While it is certainly a beautiful thing to encourage a culture of positivity and a growth mindset - employees are human beings and sometimes part of being human is having a hard time.
During my tenure with WebFX, I endured several personal traumas that were met with a hearty "well it could always be worse" or "just look on the bright side" or "this is a great opportunity for growth" and poor performance reviews to boot. I witnessed several other colleagues endure similar - if not much worse - treatment during the hardest times in their lives.
WebFX touts having a progression path where you are ultimately "in charge" of your career path. Let me be clear. You are never in charge of your career path. Management decides how they feel about you pretty quickly and no matter how much you improve or how many goals you exceed or how you perform or how long you've been with the company - if you are not one of the chosen few - your career path is fully at the mercy of your manager. And odds are, your manager just wants you to be a happy little worker bee who asks "how high" when they are told to jump but never dissents or questions a single directive.
If you like direct communication, you are not going to find it here. Even when you ask for feedback it's likely you'll be told you're doing a great job and to keep up the good work. Then when it's time for your annual review you'll be given a feedback sandwich with growth points that may include "your productivity score is a little low" (the one they use to track your WFH computer that takes a screenshot every 2 minutes) or "you spend too much time talking to coworkers at the coffee bar" ... but keep up the great work!
For a long time, I really believed the FXFamily propaganda. Turns out, the FXFamily is really only a place for college grads who don't know what the real world is actually like and are willing to accept a below industry average salary in exchange for the world's biggest game of flip cup.
