My VA, who lives in another state and we've only met once in person, has been working with me (1099) for over four years. She knows my business (blog, online courses, digital products) as well as I do. She has been an enormous help over the years. She's always gone through whatever new training I have (usually for new software, SEO updates, etc.) and is self-motivated. Here's my dilemma. TLDR: VA has been a high performer but increasingly disappears with no communication. First, this is not the core issue but is related, I know literally NOTHING about her. I THINK she's married. She has a son who's may or may not be in school. I know where she lives, but after four years, that's literally it. Oh, she has a cat because once in a while on a Zoom call, it will walk across her desk. The reason this has some bearing on my current frustration is that she could be dying of cancer or in a horribly abusive situation or living in her car -- I don't know! What I DO know is that in the past two years, she disappears on me. I'll post comments and tasks in Slack and she doesn't even acknowledge them. I see the green circle by her name, so I know she logs in every now and then (at least), but zero response. When she reappears, I'll ask her to go back through my messages and make a list of any tasks I assigned, and she does that -- but then will disappear again and again. A few months ago I brought this up and said she has been completely disengaged, and she said yes, that's the word. She said she's been dealing with health issues -- mentioned some sort of test on her heart, but never updated me. Maybe she's severely depressed or has other emotional/mental issues. She has a low-paying part-time job assisting a severely handicapped little girl in a pre-school setting, and I know that can't be easy. But she has two days each week where she's at home, and still, increasingly, very little communication. I need to analyze her time sheets more closely, but I've noticed a lot of what she does are things like create a series of Canva graphics, update blog posts -- things that don't make any money. The graphics generate comments and maybe some traffic -- but often, they aren't things I specifically assigned. She manages my content on AirTable, software that completely confounds me. I'm a starter and a visionary, she's a finisher and a detail person. For a long time our personalities and styles complimented each other. I believe she's putting in the hours, but three months ago I started scaling my business, and she's nowhere to be seen. At this point, I'm doing everything myself. I don't know how to talk with her about this. She obviously has major boundaries re: her personal life, but if her personal life is impacting MY business, I think I deserve to know even a little about what's going on. So, I'm very close to letting her go. I need suggestions for conversations before that has to happen, though. I think she desperately needs money. :( And, I need someone by my side who's the person she used to be. Suggestions for this? A past business coach told me, "It doesn't get better" (when an employee's performance declines), and I think that's the case here.