Thursday, June 21, 2018 –
12:06pm
A Japanese civil servant was fined and publicly
reprimanded in a televised press conference after officials found
he had been taking his lunch break three minutes early.
The 64-year-old worker, employed by the water
department in the western city of Kobe, was clocked leaving his
desk a few minutes before noon on 26 occasions over seven
months.
Bosses were called in “when another official looked
out an office window and saw the worker leave the building and head
towards a nearby bento store,” according to English-language
Japanese news website Sora News 24. Each trip was estimated to take
around three minutes.
The errant employee was docked half a day’s pay
for unprofessional conduct – but that wasn’t the end of the
saga.
City officials called a press conference to
address the “scandal”, where they lamented the employee’s
“immensely regrettable” offence and bowed in front of reporters as
a show of remorse.
The incident “sparked a heated debate on social media”, says
The Japan Times, “with many defending the
official”.
Coincidentally, the news broke “soon after MPs passed
a law intended to address Japan’s punishingly long working hours”,
says The Guardian.
The government has come under increasing
pressure to address a hierarchical corporate culture which often
demands total devotion with little regard for workers’
wellbeing.
Death from overwork is common enough to have its
own name – karoshi – while recent high-profile stories have drawn
attention to intrusive practices like “pregnancy rotas”, where
employees are expected to hold off having a baby until their
designated “turn”.
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