So I recently severed connections with someone that I decided wasn't much of a friend.
To me a friend is like family, you take care of them, you provide for them, because assumably they are watching out for your best interests. A friend is not an acquaintance. People often have a lot of acquaintances, but not necessarily a lot of friends. You care about the people a friend cares about, not out of any personal interest, but because our friendships form webs of interlinking interests.
I invited the person to live with us because I thought they had more similar interests with the rest of us (the dndorks crew) than he really did. I thought I could get him a job at my first computer job place because I assumed he was logical enough to understand the bare basics of computers (actually anything mechanical). I was wrong, he didn't have a mechanical-oriented mind, but oh well.
Over the years, I have been blessed in many ways, and I attempted to share those blessings. I built myself a new computer, so I built my fiance and my friend/roommate a computer. All near identical athlon 64 3000+s with 1 GB of RAM, dual 40GB hard drives in a RAID 0 array. Pretty nice.
But then I bought myself a laptop. I started hearing rumors from my other roommate/friends that my quasi-friend thought it was unfair that I could buy myself toys and such. So I bought him a laptop, told him he could pay me back whenever he began making more money.
I got him hired where I was working, because he hated working where he was (Target). It was an easy job, and he did ok at it. I rose to manager, then to equal owner of the company I worked for. I took control, began managing things. Then I hear stuff about him complaining that I'm being invited to all the manager meetings and he should be too.
??? Ok, whatever, start inviting him. We'd talk, he'd sit on his laptop and not say much of anything. Why does he want to be there again?
Ok, whatever. A year passes, we begin working out of our house. He begins working less and less. I ask him whats wrong. Nothing he says. I really want things to work out, but hes constantly grumbling about me getting more, having more, people treating me differently.
He goes to my partners and basically demands to be made a full partner as well. They tell him why? He tells them he "could" do anything they need, he "could" rise to any challenge. Why hasn't he so far they ask? Thats besides the point, isn't it more important that he "could" do anything he says? They refuse to his face.
he gets depressed. he becomes a bit of a prima donna, it got harder and harder for me to get him to work. I wanted a very corporate-style website, something mainstream. He'd argue and eventually I just went to other employees to get them to do it, since I prefer to just work. I don't usually define specifics unless necessary, but I definitely know for a mainstream website I want certain things, contrast for text, clear icons, etc.
A week comes where I ask him for his output for the prior week, he says he forgot. I start noticing on my credit cards lots of bills for MMO's I don't play anymore, and neither does he. See he borrowed my credit card to pay for his MMO's then at some point we stopped playing, but he "forgot" to cancel his account. Which is a real pain for me to cancel his accounts, since I'm not him. I have to prove I'm the holder of the credit card and so on.
I quasi-close my company, get a job. A job that I talked him up to get him hired, which asked him who he worked with and thus they began pestering me to hire me. I accepted, and they moved us into our own office. Which really infuriated him because he thought he could get an office by himself.
Ultimately he no called no showed for a 2nd time, and they fired him. At this point about once a week something was happening, either people were complaining to me about him (because I got him hired there), I was finding another charge for something he didn't cancel, or whatever. He became even more reclusive, and a brief talk with my other roommates revealed they were unhappy with the direction he was going.
He moved out, he asked me if he could keep his computer, I said yes. I had told him he didn't have to pay me back for his laptop on his prior birthday. I owned 50% of a specialty hummer and 33% of a hummer company that did offroad driving. I really got depressed about the company, and my ex-friend really was interested in it. So I told him I'd transfer my half of the hummer to him, and give him my 33% of the company.
So at this point, I've given him a 2700 dollar laptop, a 1700 computer, 50k worth of a hummer, and 33% of a company that could potentially make millions.
We bought 2 tvs together. One tv cost 3600, one tv cost around 4300. He bought 2 xbox 360s. I told him he could keep the 4300 tv if I could have his share of the 3600 tv and an xbox 360.
I knew he needed money, so I got him a flash contract that would pay him about 1000 or so dollars. 3 weeks later, my clients are complaining and about to cancel the account. he tells me he's been busy, but he'll start it and get it finished in the next couple days. He ends up trying to plus one of his power supply plugs to another power supply plugs and shorts out his computer and takes out his RAID array. He's lost all his work (who knows how much work it was). The customer won't wait anymore, I cancel the contract with him. The next day, the contract is renewed, and I give it to our artist, who does a super fabulous job, and the customer is very happy despite how long it took. Dang, shouldn't have given it to my ex-friend at all.
So a couple years ago he helped me buy webcomic.net and twc, Jenn and I do all the work around here (for whatever its worth) and I begin hearing rumors he wants me to buy him out. WTH?!?!?! (what the heck ;)) I'm the legal owner of everything, and hes been more than compensated, and doesn't do any work.
What is the ethical decision?