The employee, who is in charge of inventory control, told his supervisors that he went to a nearby restaurant to order a bento lunch because he needed a “change of pace.” But, the official said, “ordering lunch should be done during his lunch break, between noon and 1 p.m.”
The worker was caught when a senior colleague looked out of his office window and spotted him walking to get takeout food. Senior management calculated how much time he had spent away from his desk and docked him “thousands of yen as punishment,” Mr. Oka said, adding, “He said, ‘I’m sorry’ and “I will never do that again.’ ”
The official acknowledged that since making the announcement on June 15, the department had received some blowback, with people calling or writing on its website to complain. “We received about 50 or 60 such opinions,” he said.
But the department also got some support, he said, from people who said “we shouldn’t hire such a person who leaves the desk during working hours.”
He defended the department’s decision, saying, “It is our obligation as public servants to devote ourselves to the work.”
On Twitter, the waterworks employee’s punishment drew puzzlement and criticism.
“Leaving the desk for three minutes to order bento is not O.K., while leaving for 15 minutes smoking is allowed? That’s strange. Kobe City should explain it,” one person wrote.
“Honestly, who cares? This is an unprecedented apology news conference,” another social media user said, adding, “Is it much of a loss for the city that four managers hold a news conference like this?”
Another person said: “What about all the politicians who sleep in Parliament? They ought to be fired, then.”
