I work in a department of people who constantly amaze me. I wish I could say the amazing part was something positive, which one might admire and draw inspiration from. But sadly, no. What is amazing is the volume of emails declaring the need to “Work From Home” and the dubious reasons for such.
After a recent day when several people played the WFH card simultaneously, I decided that I needed some therapy in order to deal with this endless barrage of events. Therapists are expensive, so that was out. But I do own a laser. Perhaps that can be my therapy.
So, I designed the “Wheel of WFH” (pronounced ‘woof’ in my brain). I wanted something that would take all the decision-making out of the next time I was ready to play the card, so to speak.
I mined my work inbox for the reasons to use. Believe me, there were an immense number of examples. I had the foresight to consider that the ‘excuse currents’ might shift over time, so I made each of the 12 pie slices removable and attached by magnets. As such, I can blend in new trends merely by making a couple of different pie slices.
It works really well. The “flapper” (whatever that thing at the top is called) makes a really satisfying ‘flappity-flappity-flap’ noise as the wheel spins around. The main radial bearing is a leftover (an expensive one at that) from when I built my CNC machine 10 years ago. Everything else is just 1/8" Baltic Birch cut on the Glowforge.
I mounted it in a nice box and, who knows, perhaps I’ll just keep it in a drawer at work. If you suddenly hear “flappity, flappity, flap” one afternoon, there’s a good chance I won’t be in the next day!
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. i.e. “it’s coming out of both ends…” . We’ve had an (now ex) employee whose grandmother died multiple times 
- even had one print/create a fake obituary for HR… 
(I still like the one who called out because he was “… in the pokey…”
)
! I’m a fortunate individual in that for the last 7 years or so I’ve been a work from home employee. My productivity is greatly improved, my availability to my teams is unhindered by being stuck in a car or in traffic!