Six sleepy Party members have been punished for dozing off during a meeting that was discussing how to motivate lazy and sluggish officials in Xiangyang, Central China's Hubei Province.
The six men, including Lei Aihua, deputy Party secretary of Xiangyang Urban Planning Bureau and Wang Jianmin, deputy director of Xiangyang Housing Provident Fund Administration Center, were asked to hand in full written self-criticisms to the city's Party committee, Xiangyang municipal discipline inspection authority announced on its website Thursday.
The six were also asked to make a public apology at staff meetings of the units where they work.
The punishment came after a report on the meeting in a local newspaper went viral.
Some netizens were critical of the sleepy civil servants, and others were more sympathetic, saying that these meetings often smacked of formalism and are full of long, boring speeches.
"It must be caused by post-holiday syndrome, apparently," Sina Weibo user Misboss commented.
"Maybe the conference room was too comfortable," said user shuangyu jinhua.
According to China's Civil Servant Law, officials can be dismissed for serious work mistakes that cause heavy losses and bad social influence.
