theres a difference in just saying thank you by reflex vs actually being thankful and meaning it
seems like their schools business model is "therapy for depressed IT engineers", might as well just give them a money printing machine.
At least in my experience everyone in the south (US) does mean it. The underlying thing isn't even that we say thank you. It's that we generally take more time in speaking. I actually had to learn about this a lot, but it's rather interesting because northerns perceive this as southern either being less intelligent and not able to talk faster or that they take more consideration into their speech. But the fact is we generally just care more about individual human connection. We don't just say thank you, to say thank you. We take time in saying it and perform the same action for others and typically make sure the action is complete (like someone doesn't need more help). Literally our greeting is "hi how are you" and yeah most people say good and keep walking or good and ask it back, but if you express you aren't just good and want to talk about it (even to a random stranger) they'll listen. Definitely aren't licensed therapist and probably won't give the right advice back but they'll at least listen.
Of course I'm bias, but I genuinely can't imagine this type of toxic work culture in the south. Maybe in Metropolitan areas like Atlanta and Baltimore (though that gets iffy Maryland literally being the line). We might have other issues in the work place that could still lead to a toxic environment, but feeling unappreciated and invisible just doesn't seem like one. But hey maybe that's changing between lock down and online based systems. Like I can't imagine all the interaction I have with other employees being an internal SMS system where I say what I'm doing and get just a thumbs up back. That shits dyspotian.