For the OP-
I will try to answer from my perspective being a student pilot to flying for one of the big 3 to being now out of employment.
Firstly anyones POV will significantly differ based on their passport. A European/US national have different environment back home and compared to that would feel different living in ME. For someone like me coming from a third world country in Africa/South Asian land, it is a big big upgrade for lifestyle and a paycheck. I obviously did not have any way of directly comparing airline job back home as this was the first, but talking and networking with Pilots back home, it felt a privilege to be working. The environment in ME is what you make out of it. You are living in some other country working for other nationalities, if you put the ego aside, do you work adhering to SOPs and rules, and go home get the fat pay at the end you ll be living a happy life. Those who are not happy with the rules and feel too entitled because its different from there home country can be found whining at lot.
During the entire 1.5 years I spent, more or less the attitude of people , and locals were positive apart from few bad apples ( which can be found at every literally place and company) and favouring of local nationals and knowing the right people to get something done ( which seems unfair, but remember, if I from third world country would go and get a visa to work in US/EU/UK, exact same treatment can be found, so nothing new.)
One personal negative feedback would be the communicating with employees. The whole covid redundancy process though inevitable could have been dealt in a better manner by at least being transparent about the criteria. Although that said, most of my friends in non aviation field worldwide who have been laid off, were not better off in the respect. Hopefully all this gives a clearer picture on what to expect.