UK 
United States
By October 2024, Kimberley Baxter, then Head of People at Vintage Cash Cow – the online portal members of the public can use to sell their old vintage/antique items – felt mentally exhausted.
“I suddenly realised I was showing all the classic signs of burnout; I was waking up in the middle of the night crying; I was experiencing all the things I used to read about the impact of emotional stress; I needed to take a step back.”
Call it her misfortune, bad luck, or just wanting to do the very best she could for staff, Baxter says she’s been through a torrid few years – doing HR, but not the sort of HR that is “ever in the job description.”
Recalls Baxter: “Just some of the things I’ve had to do in my HR career include supporting a staff member communicate that they’re terminally ill with cancer, aged just 35; tell an employee’s partner that their loved one has passed away; comfort someone whose partner left them while they were eight months pregnant and visit a hospital to see a staff member struggling with a severe eating disorder.” And that’s not including events that really took their toll - two suicides – both within six months of each other, one of which was the co-founder of Vintage Cash Cow, David Weaver. Both instances involved other staff members finding them.
