[PonyGumbo]

>"We have our life savings in this."

Look, I get the stress of the situation, but using emotional guilt is a terrible way to try to manage people. If he's not doing the work, let him go, and make sure you set clearer expectations for your next hire. His response doesn't strike me as any more inappropriate than you dropping the life savings bombshell on him.

[richardjortega]

I wasn't trying to manage him, just that specific example was for a client who waited for three weeks for logins. All I need was an update (requested politely 4-6 times prior) and received no responses.

Those emails aren't the only ones, usually he is couple words per email. But you are right, dropping a "life savings bombshell" on him wasn't right either.

I think we didn't set expectations clearly with him because he was a friend and we worked together on various client work I didn't think anything of it.