When I was about 18 and fresh out of college I managed to land a job at a small company as a graphic designer. For the first few months there it was great, boss seemed like a nice guy. He was cocky and a little arrogant being a former salesman for a big magazine publisher, he'd left quite a well paid position to start his own company. About 8 months after i started he hired a new girl, a graduate who was working in a coffee shop to fund a trip abroad with intent to teach ESL later on. He knew her because they'd struck up an acquaintance as he'd go in there a lot, it was also pretty obvious that he was attracted to her (possibly one of the reasons he hired her). As soon as we met we hit it off, we shared similar interests and it turned out we were both heading to Japan later that year, same place, same time. We became good friends and spent a lot of time on our lunch breaks hanging out and talking about our plans to meet up in Japan when our time there crossed over. Fast forward to later in the year after we both came back, in the weeks that followed, our boss's behaviour towards her totally changed. He went from being sugary sweet and flirty, to being a nasty, bullying piece of shit. I'd frequently have to deal with the fallout on our lunch breaks, my friend would frequently break into tears and on many occasions i would have to actually talk her into going back to work. Apparently she just couldn't do anything right anymore, the boss would constantly criticise and pull apart anything she did. Eventually he just up and fired her for no reason, she always put her heart and soul into what she did, but it was clear he was just a spiteful person and just wanted her gone. On the day he sacked her she came out of the meeting room in floods of tears, i managed to catch her as she left the building and she told me what had happened. He'd spent 20 minutes shouting at her and telling her she should have stayed working in a coffee shop. After she left i was seething, i couldn't believe he could be so cruel to someone so nice and passionate about what she did. He called me into a meeting and said because i was friends with her he had concerns my performance would suffer, told me i would be put on probation for the next few months so he could assess my work. Told him i didn't want to work for a bully who treats people like that, quit on the spot and just walked out then and there without looking back.