Recently, the fire chief and nine employees of a Japanese fire station were punished for playing board games while on duty. According to Japanese media reports, the Inazawa City Fire Department in Aichi Prefecture announced on April 10 that it would suspend a fire captain in his 40s for one month for coercing his colleagues to participate in board games while on duty; the other nine team members who participated in the games received written warnings.
It is reported that the incident occurred between July 2024 and January 2025. The fire chief forced his colleagues to play a homemade board game with rules modeled after a variety of card and text games. Team members even had to sacrifice their lunch breaks to play these board games, and employees who refused to participate were alienated. In January this year, the matter came to light after an employee reported it to the company. In response, the fire commander added that his behavior was intended to improve team communication and expressed "deep" regret.
There are about ten board games in the fire station, all of which were handwritten by the commander on blank sheets of paper. One of the punished team members participated in 14 games while on duty, with a total duration of up to 35 hours. What is even more surprising is that the participants also included the fire chief, who was also reprimanded.
Currently, this matter has caused heated discussions on social media, with many netizens accusing them of neglecting their duties while on duty, while some netizens are curious whether these board games are really fun? In any case, at work, especially in a job that requires constant vigilance like firefighting, being distracted by playing board games is not allowed at all.