(Mainichi, File photo)

KAWAGUCHI, Saitama -- The city government here announced on June 28 that it has disciplined a male employee who had left work early on 147 occasions without permission.

The 41-year-old staffer, who works at a city sports center near the municipal border with Tokyo, will get a 10% pay cut for one month.

According to the city, the employee left the office five minutes earlier than the 5:15 p.m. early shift end time 147 times from Jan. 10, 2018, to Feb. 26, 2019. Late shifts end at 9:15 p.m., and the worker apparently left early almost every day when he was on the early shift.

The employee, who commutes to work by bus, was quoted as saying, "I wanted to take the 5:20 p.m. bus."

(Japanese original by Atsushi Suzuki, Kawaguchi Local Bureau)