Hello XXXXXXX,

Unless you are working pursuant to a contract or other agreement that requires the employer to give more notice or severance pay then you are an employee at will. An employee at will can be terminated with no notice for any, or no, reason as long as it is not in violation of laws against employment discrimination. So in this case, your employer has decided to give you more notice than is legally required by giving you two weeks notice. One of those weeks you'll still be working and the other, you'll be paid for but not have to work.

Hello again,

That email from the employer may have inadvertently converted you from an employee at will to a term employee by committing you to work for them for a year. Having said that, it doesn't make sense that it says you have to commit for a year but also that you can still leave if you give them two weeks notice. I assume that you have been there less than a year. You might want to see a local employment law attorney and show them the email and talk about your specific situation to see if they think you have a breach of employment contract action. At the very least, in their email they created a right to the two weeks notice. But as I said previously, they have given you that 2 weeks. One week you work and one you don't, but you get paid for two weeks. As for your vacation pay, if you have accrued the time then you should be paid for it in your final paycheck.