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[Thisfox]

Had werebeast attack, and we managed to wall off two little hospital rooms afterward, and keep two infected alive. A few months later, I had a nice suite made for each weredorf, beds and tables and chairs and cabinets and chests and a statue and so on, and made one my manager. She worked hard, and I was happy. Meanwhile, the other got to be the bookkeeper. He also did fine, and worked hard. Two nobles who were walled in and didn't need food or water! Once a month they would go beserk and not do the job, but we could adapt to that routine, and they would always catch up the work when they were over their moon madness.

Until a few years later, when my manager suddenly quit and turned all her labours off, and I was informed I needed to appoint a new manager. So I asked the other werebeast to do it. He's doing both jobs fine, except for that time of the month when he goes beserk and screams at the walls. Should I worry that sooner or later he'll also quit and turn his labour functions off? Or is he going to keep working?

[TubaDragoness]

The usual issue with werebeast and vampire dorfs losing their ability to work is them going insane. They're cut off from a few key needs (socializing, food/booze, new clothing, work) and it's hard to counteract that stress long-term without risking other members of your fortress. Turning into a mad beast once a month fixes physical wounds and hunger/thirst, but doesn't cure insanity.

Some ways to keep the happiness up: occasionally dump (and then unforbid) booze and new clothes into the containment area from a shaft that is far enough above to prevent use as an escape; detail and engrave their isolation chambers with high-quality, non-destructible art; use an airlock system to manage their movements so they can craft caravan garbage, then be blocked off so other dwarves can collect it. Note that werebeasts are building destroyers, and will regularly knock down or ruin any statues and workshops they have access to.

[MC]

I've made werebeast quarantines work reliably before. Lock them in using a hatch from above (building destroyers can't break those, there's also always the option of locking the door in their face which breaks their pathfinding). By using burrows (which werebeasts seem to respect? At least sometimes), and levers assigned to specific dwarves you can give them visitors every now and then to let them socialize. Is this far too much work when you could just strip them naked and tell them to attack a dragon's lair? yes. Is it worth it? no. will it end badly? assuredly. Should you do it anyways? of course.

[Thisfox]

Note that werebeasts are building destroyers, and will regularly knock down or ruin any statues and workshops they have access to.

They've been werebeasts for eight years now.
After the initial building destroying they did in the first few months of their captivity, they never destroyed another building. The manager threw a bed and a door, her friend down the hall pushed over a cabinet, but that was all at their first turning. They are in fancy, well built rooms with polished floors and wall engravings, fancy furniture and doors and clothes. Yet they have never ripped up one of their beds or thrown one of their desks or damaged a chair during their "episodes".

I find this is the case even in the cases where you don't bother quarantining weres (come on, everyone, you know you've done it at least once!) After a few bad experiences, the weres tend to not destroy things when they turn any more. This is despite being in a room full of furniture. My forts are very door-rich, and have doors EVERYwhere, and you can tell when someone turned for the first time, because there's a door or two all over the floor. But not the second time they turn.... They will still fight and kill, but I've had a werebeast gravedigger (it was a pennance, and we were mostly out of unturned adults, so it kinda worked to get the worst of the dead into tombs and coffins faster) who would always coincidentally be in a tomb when he turned, and despite being berserk, he would topple no statues, rip no doors off their hinges, and throw no memorial slabs after he had gone through the first few months of his infection.

[Salmeuk]

Don't managers need to meet with dwarves face-to-face in order to help assuage their concerns about the poor management (read: lower stress)? They can't fullfill that duty if they are locked away for good. Otherwise, as others have said, the dwarf in isolation tends towards insanity. . .

[MC]

nah thats the expedition leader/mayor. Most people make them fill both rolls cuz it's easy and keeps them around their office but you don't need to.