Employer threatens remote employee with lawsuit for a second time after they hand in their resignation, despite them extending their notice period by 45 days: 'I just want out of this circus without getting a lawsuit thrown at me'

An employee who agreed to extend their notice period to help their employer is now facing threats of litigation after accepting a new job.

It should be no surprise that many "successful" people who run small businesses got there because of their tenacity, and, let's be honest, approaching their work and their business with levels of ferocity and obsession that others would find frightening. And it's something that has helped them survive the rigours of forging a successful enterprise. The entrepreneurial spirit normally requires all-consuming passion to achieve an abstract vision, along with grit, determination, and long hours to see it materialize.

The business will inevitably expand and grow with its success. And as it grows, the founder will need to bring more people on board, and one or two employees will expand to the point that a management structure needs to be put in place.

Eventually, it will reach the point where the owner needs a position in their company, and why not CEO? That sounds like an important title. Really, this means "owner" is the same as it was before, but it might fool new staff and clients for a moment or two before they connect the dots. Despite now retaining a title that speaks to their supposed experience and management skills, the nature of the growth they've experienced to this point and their success has never been tied to the management of people, having done everything themselves or within their family.

They might be, and probably are, great with sales or promoting their business to others, but these are not the same skills that qualify for good people management. Managing people is another beast entirely. For one, you need to know how to consider people and their value outside of straight numbers, until they manage to replace all of us with AI there will always be an intangible art to managing people.

Their approach to people is often the same ferocity they brought to their businesses from the outset, believing that if they can just bend people into the shape they want them to be, like they did their business, then everything will work out. This can create horrifying workplaces with no culture that sometimes cross or tread on the borderline of legality.

It's a bit like living with a roommate who owns the house; it's never the same as renting the entire house among equals. The roommate and owner of the home simply cannot approach situations of the treatment of and rights within the home, or financial discussions, in the same way as those living with them. Those who have lived in these situations will know that the stressed-out owner will be far more authoritarian about everything that happens in "their" house than you'd ever find in similar living arrangements.

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In both these growing small business employment situations, situations will always be distorted by this lens of viewing people as an unfortunate cost, not contributors, and simultaneously resenting them for not bringing the same obsessive attitude that they would.
It sounds like this is exactly the type of workplace that this employee found themselves in after falling victim to a "bait and switch" hiring process for a remote role. They began the role back in March and quickly became acquainted with the company's owner and “CEO,” who ran the place like Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.” They were immediately moved onto another project than the one they had been hired for and were thrown into the thick of it with no training.
After growing tired of the toxic workplace culture, they handed in their notice, stating that they'd be willing to work their two-week notice period but no longer. Their employer responded that they were actually contracted to work through 30 days, and that they would take them to court for breach of contract if they did not uphold that. So, the worker agreed to work the 30 days, then asked them to stay until the end of the year, which they inexplicably agreed to. Now, with the end of the year quickly approaching, and a new job finally secured, they again tried to resign, to which their employer again threatened legal action since they had “agreed” to work through the end of the year.
This was all, of course, bluster and fireworks as the employer didn't have a leg to stand on, if they even had one to stand on to begin with, given that the employee was now over 45 days into their “notice period." But, as with all legal situations like this… do you really want to be the one to find out? Possibly finding yourself having to hire expensive lawyers just to get a phony lawsuit dismissed?
Far easier to do what you need to do to slip out the back door and leave things where they lie.

Frustrated, the worker shared their experience, seeking advice on what they should do to get out of the sticky situation they found themselves in.
"Employer threatening litigation over me resigning TWICE"

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$tconners If you are in the US: Pretty sure they have to abide by the rules of the state in which \you\ are physically working. There may be exceptions to that but that's the general rule as far as I can tell. Also, what does your contract actually say? I persume you have a copy of it, or they will prompty provide you a copy of it if you don't have one for any reason. I'd be interested to know what you do that they're fighting this hard to keep an employee that doesn't want to be there, when they$

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