A hotel pastry worker gave four days’ notice, her manager said he’d start a two-week clock anyway, and her reply cited New York law

A pastry department employee at a high-end hotel recently stood her ground after her manager pushed back on the amount of notice she gave when she resigned. She had given four days’ notice. TikTok creator George Stern shared the email exchange in a video, according to The Daily Dot. The employee started the process with a respectful message to her manager.

She explained that she was moving forward with new career opportunities and said she genuinely loved working with her team. She also offered to stay on a per diem basis if the manager needed her help. “What a thoughtful email,” George Stern said. The manager did not take the news well. He insisted on discussing her resignation once she returned from vacation.

He wrote that four days’ notice was “not even close to the standard” he expected, calling two weeks the bare minimum asked of employees in every industry. He then stated that if she still intended to leave, he would begin counting a two-week notice period starting from the date of her email.

The manager tried to restart the clock on her two weeks

However, the employee did not accept that timeline, as she told Stern the hotel was known for cutting hours to almost zero once staff gave notice. “She does not owe him anything,” Stern said. The employee responded by citing New York’s at-will employment rule, under which both employers and employees can end the working relationship at any time for any reason. She also claimed that staff members who gave the standard two weeks’ notice were met with severe consequences.

New York is an at-will state, and no state statute requires workers to give two weeks’ notice before quitting unless a contract says otherwise. However, the same rule cuts both ways, as an employer can reduce a departing worker’s schedule or end the job early once notice is given. That is the practice the employee claimed her hotel followed. She also raised how, according to her, the hotel handled a sexual harassment complaint she had filed.

She wrote that the coworker named in her complaint stayed on the payroll, while her own hours were moved to accommodate the other man on the schedule. She said the way the complaint was handled left her uncomfortable. Stern praised her reply as the right way to leave a job, and the video is one of many workplace stories he shares on TikTok by reading out messages workers send him. Her account has not been independently verified, and the side of the hotel and manager, neither of whom was named, is not available.