There's people working in Dubai who make very little money, have crowded, cramped, hot living quarters, will be jailed if they try to start a union, and have to do dangerous construction work in one of the hottest places on earth. When they die, their employers don't care. If one of these people described Dubai as "hell on earth", would you tell them they were being hyperbolic?

> If you try to humanise the place you will lose your mind. If you ask yourself what the woman at the hair-braiding stand left behind to be here, and why, you will lose your mind. If you accept the kindness of the staff with whom you make a paltry effort to speak each morning as they clear your dirty breakfast plate, you will lose your mind, because your tip is the only kindness you can meaningfully offer in return. Trying to attend to your own towel by the pool might cause the man who stands for hours in the ferocious sun to do so for you to lose his job. Being served makes us cruel infants. It demeans us all.

I understand this passage and can relate, "self-evidently awful to them only" seems a bit of a stretch. There are places on Earth where "being employed for tourism" means job security, worker rights and social protections, where staff is treated with respect and are allowed dignity.

> I scrolled back, thinking I had missed where they described that

The explanation of that phrase is in... the very next three sentences.