How far off of 50% of the work was the work they performed? Could it have been a simple case of they did about half the work for the pay you gave? Maybe that'd

How far off of 50% of the work was the work they performed? Could it have been a simple case of they did about half the work for the pay you gave? Maybe that'd be how I'd square it with myself. (But still probably never working with people who ghost again.) You paid 50% and got less than 50% of the work done, but work was still done - somewhere between 25% and 50% it sounds like. It'd also help the personal re-framing if the next people I hired quoted less for the remaining work and it was done in a day. Granted, this is work with plants and things which change/increase in entropy by the day. The possible life lesson here is to not let perception or preconception sour an otherwise sort of alright outcome. And sometimes outright re-framing a sour situation can diminish the sting. (Along the lines of "breakups hurt, but enjoy the good times and memories for what they were.") There's also not letting sunk costs steer decisions towards still worse outcomes.