I think this is a classic case of preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. You prepare by removing any personal files from your computer before you give notice and perhaps quietly taking home anything irreplaceable. If you clear out your entire office, that might be a little too obvious. If you want to stay on 2 weeks and help with transition, then say so when you resign. What happens after that is out of your hands, but you’re ready either way.
How legally enforceable are non-compete clauses anyway?
Simple answer, they are or are not depending on jurisdiction. Nuanced answer, they may or may not be enforceable depending on the terms of the agreement, the jurisdiction in question and the peculiar case facts. Consult a lawyer when in doubt.
My “getting fired” story is amusing in retrospect . I had a salaried inside sales position for a company that sold stage lighting. This was in the mid 1980’s and we were just starting to see computerized and technically sophisticated ( for 1986) items come into the market.
The company was a family business and quirky in the way only family businesses can be. It was not, however, owned by MY family.
Now I was good with the new equipment and I could quickly figure out what each item could and couldn’t do.
And that was the problem. The omnipresent owner of the company was, frankly, stupid. He was a good salesperson in his way but dumb as a pile of rocks. And he didn’t like hearing you tell anyone that there were things that the equipment couldn’t do. In his head it was " This computerized stuff can do anything and everything". And I wasn’t going to lie and I was put in the middle a few times when he would promise someone that this controller could do x, y and z and would ask me to show the customer how to set up the controller to do x,y and z when it couldn’t be done.
So we hit some conflicts but I was still liked and, to their credit, they considered me part of the family. So they didn’t fire me. The transferred me to “work in the warehouse” without giving anyone any idea of what I was supposed to be doing in the warehouse.
Now during my two years at the company I had developed a great relationship with the warehouse guys, who didn’t like me at first because they thought I’d been hired for my looks. But they soon found out I was 10 times smarter than anyone else in the place -which made me way easier to work with.
And they were collectively outraged at the way I had been treated. So they set up a little area for me with a TV and a comfy chair and wouldn’t let me lift a finger or do any work. And they would perform daily entertainments for me, little skits that involved many horrible yet absurdly amusing things happening to the company management.
That was fun for about 2 weeks but it wasn’t sustainable- as much as I might have liked, in abstract, the idea of getting paid to watch TV and do nothing, the reality was far different.
So I basically requested a meeting and asked to be fired - I felt I had been constructively fired anyway and I felt I was entitled to unemployment benefits if I needed them.
So they readily gave me my two weeks notice, I think they were relieved that I wanted out.
A few days later I took a few hours off to go to a job interview. Then we’re fine with this when I left. But when I got back they told me they didn’t want me to work off the two weeks notice, they would pay me but to leave immediately and not come back.
Which was fine by me but it still seemed weird considering the circumstances.
Where I work we don’t typically escort someone out of the building as soon as they put in their two week notice. We generally have good relationships with our employees and a lot of them end up coming back to us sometimes after a few months of working elsewhere. When someone puts in their two weeks we see that as time to get everything in order before the employee leaves. This gives the employee time to wrap up some of their work, to transfer their work to others, and it gives us time to conduct an exit interview.
I do remember one person who was escorted out of the building as soon as he put in his notice. But he worked in a particularly sensitive area and was going to work for a direct competitor. We paid him for his two weeks of course and there were no hard feelings on our part.