Stepford - Anonymous employee Cox Communications Employee Review

Stepford wives - If there is one word I would use to describe Cox, it's Stepford. If you haven't seen the movie in a while, watch it (it's currently on Hulu) and see if it's an environment in which you feel you could thrive. For me, it drove me literally insane. Gaslighting and toxic positivity are the name of the game at Cox and all individuality and personality are beaten out of you by CONSTANT feedback and nitpicking. "Cox Nice" is how Cox refers to its culture, however, it's the exact opposite of nice - it's passive aggressive, back stabbing and mean. Sense of humor is discouraged, unless it's dad jokes. Dad jokes are OK. Unique language - I was once told to be wary of any company that has its own unique language and way of speaking. It took me about 1.5 years to really learn and be able to speak the Cox language fluently. For example, if you have a question in a meeting, you can't just ask the question as that would appear too abrasive and aggressive. Instead, you must spend a good 30 seconds or more apologizing before asking your question (ex: "I'm so sorry, I just have a quick question, you probably said it and I may have missed it, but real quick, if you don't mind, could you clarify the second bullet on slide 2?"). Everyone does this, men and women, and even the C-suite executives. This also contributes to why every meeting runs long because more than half the time is spent apologizing before they get to the point. There are other language nuances, but it's definitely something you need to learn in order to be successful at Cox. Almost everyone that works there has only ever worked for Cox. This is because most people that have worked somewhere else tend to leave within 3 years because of the toxic culture, and it's also very tough to break into the Cox Clique. This also means that innovation and new ideas are rare because they don't like outsiders.