A.G. Gancarski
In emails last week, Shawnti Lee, a personnel clerk for the Department of Employee and Labor Relations in Jacksonville, offered her resignation, using very specific criteria to make her case.
Lee, who came aboard in February 2015, cited “varying differences in my realm of work ethics and professionalism that seem to still not be favorable with my immediate manager, Jackie Edwards.”
“As a retired Veteran, I feel that I have a just sense of a work environment and I have experienced nothing but a hostile, unprofessional, vindictive and immature work environment while employed within this department,” Lee writes, signaling her desire to “remove myself completely from the City of Jacksonville Team and garner my skillset in another direction.”
Jacksonville’s Director of Employee Services, Kelli O’Leary, noted that “I would have thought that you would have allowed me the opportunity to readdress the matter by bringing it to my attention since we had last met in May. Subsequent to our meeting I have not been made aware that a hostile, unprofessional, vindictive and immature work environment existed.”
O’Leary also noted that Lee took an HR Specialist exam, but that she “did not pass in order to be moved to the next phase of selection.”
To which Lee responded that exam was “not a factor of any kind” and, moreover, that “during my previous meetings with [O’Leary] and Mr. Rieves those meetings were rushed (no more than 30 minutes even though I had scheduled in advance as to the nature of my need to meet with you both). However, during both meetings I did express the hostile culture of this department, in which I was assured that it would be looked in to and a follow up meeting with me would be held. Which never has taken place.”
Lee’s resignation will be effective at the close of business on January 8.
