Late to the thread but I got a university friend of mine his current job. We're in a rough industry to break into and I got massively lucky right out of uni and worked my arse off from there, so I helped him with portfolio advice and networking and referred him for a position here when one opened.

Anyway he started immediately cozying up to a short-tempered senior manager the company keeps around because he's a 'creative genius' and he's allowed to do a certain amount of intense verbal and psychological abuse collateral damage. For whatever reason, my friend basically became his minion. He'd ignore work to gossip and snitch on people, then blame everyone else for the problems his lack of work caused. Friend came down especially hard on me, feeding our manager a disgusting amount of personal information about me in an attempt to paint me as unstable and emotional.

I found out because said manager lured me into a meeting room alone and went OFF on me for some task he thought I'd fucked up, and it got into him screaming at me about my failings as a person and what my friend had alleged. My friend had even told this guy about my history with self harm, and said that the sight of my scars would put him off his food - and I've worn long sleeves my entire adult life, I even cover them with makeup, you'd need to KNOW they were there and also have x-ray vision.

There's not really an ending, I'm afraid. HR have declared it a 'he said she said' situation, friend and manager have called me a liar, and I'm too exhausted to fight it any more. I'm reconsidering this entire fucking industry.