That stuff even happens with UK companies taking over German companies. They think they can just fire the members of the working council, very bad mistake! Remember, if you go to another country, you have to adjust to their law.

I am not sure of assholes. I think they distribute evenly across all nations. On the other side those countries tend to be specifically nationalistic. Russia would also go in this cluster, but it is much more seldom to meet Russians these days in Europe or the US. I just want to add that India has the huge advantage that a lot of people can speak some kind of English. Most with a strong accent, but the percentage of English speaking Indians is very high compared to china, Korea, Japan.

I actually had to buy a new dishwasher and in Germany every dishwasher has to be set to economical cleaning mode as default. That being said there is also a fast mode, but you have to use special tabs that dissolve fast enough. Otherwise they will not dissolve fully during the washing stage and then the stuff would be stuck in the dishwasher after drying and it might seriously reduce lifetime of seals etc. So be careful with short washing programs on modern dishwashers!

Exactly. Once you can be exchanged easily there is no need to treat you well. Then it is more up to the character and motivation of your superior. Working in IT development (google or Apple) can sometimes been seen as good working conditions, but this is more because they know they need not only someone who studied IT, but is also knowledgeable and highly motivated, which narrows down the potential candidates a lot.