24M. A year ago, I was stuck in a low-paying customer service job at a regional ISP in South America with no room for growth. After a family loss and major burnout, a long-time friend in Europe offered me a remote coding job for his indie game (Godot), despite me having no prior dev experience. To help me set up a proper workstation, he advanced me 7 months of pay (~$3,000).As the sole provider for my family, emergency expenses (car repairs, bills, medicines) ate half the cash, while the PC parts I ordered got stuck in US customs. I struggled to learn fast enough, struggled with medication side effects, and fell behind. When an IT contract in my actual field came up, I tried to juggle both, burned out, and eventually prioritized the IT job, which led to a permanent full-time position.I’ve now completely fallen off the game project, owe my friend $3,000 (which is still a lot relative to my salary here), and damaged a long-standing friendship. The guilt over betraying his trust and the team (even if very small) is overwhelming and has only led me to remain unhappy despite having been able to finalize the PC build with some cheaper pieces and my current environment, and I even had a few breakdowns in front of my peers.Is there a realistic approach to repay the debt and remain on good terms with that friend and the whole project? We're still friends, but the tension centered around the circumstances makes it uncomfortable to talk about many topics.
Pay back your friend’s 3,000 dollars as soon as possible, you faggot.
You should repay the debt + interest when able and offer an apology, but don't expect that to repair anything. Only your friend can tell you if your relationship can be mended.Just reading this I think you're bullshitting even us. You knew you were gonna spend that money on something else before you even got it.However, don't beat yourself up too much over this. That guy took a business risk and lost out on it. It happens. That's literally all business is: taking on risk. He also should have ordered the parts and shipped them to you so that you didn't have the opportunity to squander the money. I'm sure he learned a lesson.
>>35076704I also want to add that mixing money and friendship is almost always a bad fucking idea. It only works with VERY clear contracts + you and the friend have a solid relationship + neither is a fucking retard. So basically it never works.
>>35076656sell the computer?>PC parts I ordered got stuck in US customswdym? how did this happen? exporting shit is usually done without issues, customs from origin countries usually don't check stuff. the hard part is passing customs in the receiving country.also, why would your friend be mad at you? you didn't bertray him. shit happened, he risked it and lost. he could have bought and sent the computer himself.sounds like a bs story to me. where in south america is $400/mo enough to keep a whole family?>7 months of pay (~$3,000).nice "friend" you got there. he's probably getting paid $3k A MONTH while trying to enslave you... have you ever thought of that?
>>35076729>customs from origin countries usually don't check stuffnot OP but I'm pretty sure they're paying A LOT of attention to GPU's leaving the country right now...
>>35076736yeah, I was thinking of that while writing, and forgot to add it next. but I assume that that only happens to powerful GPUs, and why the fuck would the OP need a powerful GPU? also, wouldn't he have gotten his money back if he never got the GPU? though considering that's he's south american, he might be retarded enough to buy something he didn't need, or to have fallen for a scam...t.south american
>>35076747>but I assume that that only happens to powerful GPUsThey still have to check if there is a powerful GPU in there in the first place. Lots of organizations are bamboozling customs to get around the export ban to chinkiaIdk about the money aspect OP is a bit too vague about that. I wouldn't lend him $3k kek
OP here, first and foremost, thanks for your answers.I was too vague as I didn't know if there was a char limit (newfag to long posts) and as I was posting the thread bumped. Lemme give more context, hopefully this gives more insight:>>35076729>>35076747The parts I ordered abroad were only the PSU, a few RAM sticks and a mouse/keyboard. The PSU itself is the one I needed the most as the ones I usually find here are dupes, generics or unreliable (I live in Venezuela, the electric services are very frequent) so under a friend recommendation, he suggested a model, and since he was about to bring a few packages himself, he aided me on ordering the stuff. Apparently it was retained because his movement was flagged as illicit (did the payment with Zinli). Even today we still have no concrete answer on the status of the documentation filed, but honestly I stopped asking, which may be one of the worst things I've done (I'm this retarded).Yeah, $400 monthly is still not all that serviceable, but at the moment it seemed good enough of a deal to me as I was somewhat desperate, and definitely was more than what I was getting paid prior.The full expenses of the PC, the monitor and desktop themselves were nearly $1100 so I definitely went overboard and that's considering the pieces I had to buy here to replace the ones that never arrived. About $1300 alone went into car repairs as we bought an entire engine. I can't help but think I took very bad decisions, but I unsure on how to proceed properly.>>35076696It fully is within my plans to repay him asap. Never once have I been the type to ask for money, I studied hard to not find myself in such a predicament, but apparently even junior engineers can't escape the fate of working as L1 customer service over here. I may actually be retarded but that's no excuse.That is to say, I still am part of the project but I no longer aid as a coder. I'll be working as a translator but that day is yet to come once dev speeds up.
>>35076856Meant to say electricity service failing is very frequent*, sorry.Also, I don't have a GPU, my processor has iGPU and since I basically needed it to run on somewhat light 3D as an endgame dev goal, that's the most I scoped it for.>>35076724Yes, I learned the hard way that such a compromise is far from being a good idea. I psyched myself into believing I could be up to that task with such tacit agreements in mind, but time told me otherwise.
You lost the friendship anyway, so maybe just keep the money
>>35076878Or alternatively, set aside more time and work on his game if you really value the friendship. It depends on how important it is to you
>>35076856>he was about to bring a few packages himself, he aided me on ordering the stuff. Apparently it was retained because his movement was flagged as illicit (did the payment with Zinli). Even today we still have no concrete answer on the status of the documentation filed, but honestly I stopped asking, which may be one of the worst things I've done (I'm this retarded).but this makes it HIS faultyou and your friend are both retarded af lmaowell, no wonder. you venecos are fucking stupid, which is why your country is in such a terrible state.tell your friend to apply for a chargeback, and to tell the card issuer that he fell for a scam, you retard.
