Gill Hicks’s London bombing horror delivers a lesson in priorities

On July 7, 2005, Gill Hicks’ world changed. On the way to work she stood next to a London Underground suicide bomber.

Gill Hicks with daughter Amelie Falzon, and getting ready to tap dance at a hospital lunch.

Sometimes all it takes is a moment to change a person’s perspective on life and cause a re-evaluation of goals, purpose and even identity.

As publishing director of British magazine Architecture, Design and Contemporary Culture, Gill Hicks thought working 7.30am until 10.30pm daily and becoming friends with the office security guard was a normal commitment to achieving success.

That was until July 7, 2005, when, unusually, she was running late for work and unknowingly stood next to a suicide bomber on a London Underground train, about to experience Britain’s worst terrorist attack first-hand.

After being stuck in a carriage after the bomb exploded, tying her scarf around the top of her legs to stem massive bleeding and coming dangerously close to death, Hicks questioned whether the long hours and dedication to work were necessary and, if she lived, whether returning to 15-hour days was worth existing for.

“Afterwards I looked back in hindsight and thought ‘Where did my life go wrong?’, because I spent a good chunk in an office thinking I was working the equivalent of curing cancer where I wasn’t really,” Hicks says.

Hicks told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia forum that a day before the London bombings, she was attending important meetings and taking pride in a folder marked urgent on her desk. Six months later, after learning to walk with prosthetic legs, she returned to work attending meetings that were discussing the same topic as before the terrorism attack and finding her “urgent” folder gathering dust.

It was the light bulb moment that made her realise she was worth more than her working persona, and she resigned soon after to enable more time to recover, later establishing a foundation to promote peace.

The Australian Institute researcher and author of Workin’ 9 to 5.30: Unpaid Overtime and Work Life Balance, Molly Johnson, says that although Australians rate work-life balance as the most important aspect of life, a Bankwest survey found one in five people have little balance.

“Forty-two per cent of workers thought their work-life balance had deteriorated over the previous five years with the most common reason for this being long working hours,” Johnson says. Almost two-thirds of Australian workers feel their working arrangements have an adverse effect on their health, wellbeing and relationships. Nearly two in five find work affects stress levels, one-third feel work affects their sleep and one-quarter of workers suffer from work-related anxiety.

University of South Australia work and organisational psychology professor Maureen Dollard says employer expectations of working longer and sometimes unpaid hours significantly affect work-life balance.

She says finding a balance is “absolutely worth it” although it can be difficult with constant demands from children, financial pressures and employers.

Dollard specialises in workplace-stress research, and recommends talking to others in and outside the workplace about how best to achieve a balance.

Supporting a family, financial commitments and living expenses can all intensify workplace stress.

“We don’t want to admit sometimes the requirements of us financially,” Dollard says.

Beyondblue policy, research and evaluation leader and former general practitioner Stephen Carbone says that although stress is part of everyday life, balancing lifestyle is important to avoid the effects of too much stress.

“Work is a part of life, it shouldn’t dominate, it shouldn’t become the end-all and be-all of your day,” Carbone says.

“If you’re enjoying your work and it’s not too much on your plate you’re going to feel fine, but when it all starts to mount up or you don’t have support or people are giving you a hard time, you’re going to feel stressed.”

Being unhappy at work also can add to the effects of stress and, in serious cases, mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

“Not everybody enjoys every minute of their day at work but if you’re finding every day is a drag … then that’s a bit of a warning sign that you need to listen to and do something about,” Carbone says.

Left untreated, depression and anxiety can cause people to self-harm and, in extreme cases, commit suicide.

“In most workplaces people understand that you have to stay back a bit later, but where it’s become an expectation or even a demand that you’re going to be working much longer hours … that’s clearly unfair and unreasonable,” Carbone says.

“If it’s starting to impact on that work-life balance (and) that ability to tune out and do other things … I don’t think that’s a good thing.”

Johnson says a SafeWork Australia report found work-related mental stress made up a third of all mental stress compensation claims between 2008 and 2011.

She says workplace stress also has been linked to cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, with employees who work longer hours more prone to having a stroke compared with those who work normal hours.

In 2009, the Australian Institute launched National Go Home on Time Day, to highlight work-life balance.

“Since Go Home on Time Day was launched work-life balance had become a national conversation,” Johnson says.

“However, work-life balance is still more of an aspiration than a reality for many.”