We are a very small business and as such, don't have any employees but we do have a gent that we work with on a contractual basis, but he pretty much only works for us* so he's almost like an employee. He worked with us many years ago when we all worked for the same company.

*Pretty much only works for us because he doesn't put himself out there to find other work. He almost exclusively relies on us for work.

Anyway, this gent has been complaining for quite some time that he's struggling to make ends meet as his fiance lost her job last year already and keeps asking us to buy his services on an SLA basis, a minimum of say 50 hours or so a month for a bulk price. He says he almost couldn't afford his daughters daycare, he can't afford gas, etc. Basically he's making it our problem he's in financial distress.

My business partner wants us to buy the SLA to help him, but I don't want to. She thinks if we do this to help him, he'll have a better overall attitude (not that his attitude stinks, he's just been a bit down) and this will help us be a priority over his other, albeit far and few, clients.

I don't want to do it because I don't think it will help. I feel like he's living beyond his means as it is, as he is forever out the house, forever posting himself here and there, etc. I feel like bulk hours will enable him to be even more irresponsible, at our cost. He complains to us that he spends sometimes hundreds in gas a week, but we ask him to attend to like three or four jobs a week and most of them are within a very reasonable distance. He has said to us himself he is barely at home, so I'm not guessing here. He complains that he could barely afford his daughters childcare, but that very evening he posted himself out for dinner with his fiance and then the next morning, told us he can't work because on his way home he drove over nails in the road that burst his tires.... This is a very regular thing of his, that he can't do work because he has this issue and that issue.

I feel like the bulk hours will expire and he'll be happy as he's been paid, while we're out of pocket and having to pay another guy to attend to jobs because his car doesn't want to start or his tires are flat or his daughter is sick or he has to take his fiance to the doctor - those are all previous excuses he has given.

We increased his per hour rate already this year and now we've increased his travel rate, he bills us separately for kms travelled. And to add to this, we provide him with uncapped Internet as well as a phone line.

Am I being unreasonable? I am in charge of finances in the company.

*thanks but not in the US.

** thanks, yes I did post earlier this year and I am still saying no but they're mounting more and more pressure on me to say yes. I won't give in though. They both seem to think that now that's there's a bit of spare money, it can be blown on bonuses and contractor fee increases. My business partner asked me yesterday if we're going to get bonuses this month and I asked for what, we just got bonuses in September for a massive project that *I* completed. We have to save spare money, not pay it out unnecessarily. 🙄🤔