Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Japan: Chiba gov't workers punished for leaving work two minutes early

Japan: Chiba gov't workers punished for leaving work two minutes early

On March 10, the Funabashi City Board of Education in Chiba Prefecture announced it had disciplined a number of staff for leaving the office two minutes early. Staff say they left early because they wanted to get an earlier bus home.
The Board of Education found 316 incidences of early departures from May 2019 to January 2021, involving seven staff members. The ringleader was found to be a 59-year-old woman in charge of attendance management, who was working at a counsellor level in the Lifelong Learning Department.

The counsellor was disciplined for taking the initiative in defrauding timecards, which recorded departure times as 5:15 p.m., although she and other staff were leaving at 5:13 p.m. in order to catch the 5:17 p.m. bus.

Other habitual offenders included a 27-year-old male director and a woman in her 60s, both employed this fiscal year, who received written reprimands. Four other staff members, also employed this fiscal year, were given strict cautions for punching out early.

The time-swindling ringleader has been punished with a one-tenth reduction in salary for three months. This salary cut is expected to reimburse the Board of Education with approximately 137,000 yen to cover the unreported leave accumulated.

According to the Board of Education, when asked why they had knocked off before their assigned finishing time, staff said they “wanted to go home early.” If they missed the bus at 5:17, the next bus wouldn’t arrive until 30 minutes later, at 5:47 p.m.

People in Japan expressed sympathy for the plight of the workers, saying:

“How many companies pay properly on a minute-by-minute basis? If that were the case, then staff who work one minute overtime should get paid for it.”

“They’re still using timecards? So outdated.”

“It would be nice if, when they found out about the bus timetable, they could make some flexible arrangement for government workers like getting them to come in a bit earlier instead.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if the bus service timetable could be changed?”

“Civil servants can’t have flexible work arrangements–they should talk to the union about changing working hours or switching to a flex-time system.”

“People already arrive at least five minutes earlier than their scheduled time for work, so you’d think it would be okay for them to leave two minutes early.”

In Japan, it’s often said that if you’re not 10 minutes early to an appointment then you’re late, so it’s common for staff to arrive ten minutes earlier than their scheduled start time to stay in everyone’s good books.

That doesn’t mean you can ever leave early, though, because just as unpaid early arrivals are the norm, so too are unpaid overtimes, which these workers may now find themselves doing for roughly 20 minutes a day, unless the bus company decides to change its schedule.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×