In this candid interview, Jessica Hickman shares her life story, beginning with her upbringing in Wales and early volunteer work in youth services, through a backpacking stint that led her to Australia. She describes her transition into a corporate HR role in Darwin’s male‑dominated oil and gas sector, where she spearheaded suicide‑prevention and mental‑health initiatives for a large, multicultural fly‑in‑fly‑out workforce. Despite professional successes and public recognition, Jessica endured three and a half years of severe workplace bullying, harassment, and sabotage by her HR manager, culminating in a physical collapse and burnout. She chronicled the experience in a forthcoming book and has since pivoted to launch Bullyology, a business dedicated to addressing bullying and fostering healthier workplace cultures. The narrative highlights themes of social impact, gender dynamics in industry, mental‑health advocacy, personal resilience, and brand building after trauma.
Chapters
tell people who you are and where you're from. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so hi, I'm Jess. So I'm from Wales. I've been in Australia 7 years this year. So came over as the typical backpacking dream, 3 months, 6 months, now, you know, 7 years. Fell in love with the place, the people, and the lifestyle. But that didn't come without its challenges. So my background in the UK, worked for the local government in the youth service, so running youth homeless and drop-in and youth centres. And so from a young age, from the age of 14, I was kind of volunteering, mentored into these positions. So at 23, I was in two management positions working full-time in the construction industry and as admin running offices across multiple construction sites, and then four nights a week in the youth service. So I was, you know, at that point where I I was a typical 23-year-old, felt like I was at the top of my game and not really sure what I wanted to do. My passion has always been in social impact. So I came to Australia, I wanted to live up the dream, just finished my studies which I was doing alongside these two roles. So I was like, it was like the mask was off, it was like freedom. And so look, I loved it, traveled through Asia, all around Australia, lived in every state, and Sydney, and was very lucky. I say lucky, but I got offered a position which was working in HR in Darwin in the oil and gas industry. So look, that was the best thing that ever happened to me with regards from going from a backpacker to working in a corporate office in Perth for a couple of months and then flown to Darwin and dropped in the Northern Territory in outback. For luck, with the promise of career progression, sponsorship, residency, just everything that you want to dream of. And I loved my job. Look, if you can imagine, it was an oil and gas project, male-dominated, and 7,000, 10,000 at one point, people working in this project, 52 different nationalities, indigenous culture. We were, you know, had the opportunity to go out to rural areas, recruit indigenous people, learn about the culture. Which I feel now I live in Sydney, it's just, it's two different worlds. I feel like here it's quite, quite ignorant, the kind of real culture. So that gave me a crash course in the amazing history of this country. But working in this position in HR, the buzzword was suicide, unfortunately. And day one on the job, it was, you know, your job will be to make sure that people come, come to work and go home safe. Suicide in the industry, and particularly male, males in construction and then fly-in fly-out industry is extremely high. So I was, you know, at that point went, one, shit, I've got a big job on my hands, and two, right, I feel like I'm here where I need to be right now and I can bring in my youth and social impact skills and workshops and kind of interventions and make partnerships with local community and see how we can really get ahead of of the kind of curve with suicide. And build a relationship with everyone I recruit so I can make sure that they feel valued, but more importantly, stay connected to their families that were often interstate or in other countries. And so just the demographic of that job, and the people were living on camps for a month at a time away from friends and family. So look, that came with drugs, alcohol, sex addiction, gambling. If you are in a male-dominated environment, you know, it's the boys' club, there's the struggle diving to keep up. So look, it was a big job, but something that I loved. So we were fortunate, you know, my career skyrocketed. We were able to raise enough money to get a full-time mental health worker on the project. People were speaking up. If you can imagine a Welsh girl stood in front of big Kiwi and Aussie scaffolders saying, "Let's talk about mental health." They were like, "Who is this chick?" But look, we got there, but unfortunately, when you are champion for change, and particularly being a female in that industry, the more successful I got, like I was in front of the minister, winning awards, all of that things, but more importantly, people were speaking out. I suffered extensive bullying from my HR manager, and this went on for 3 and a half years, which was super interesting considering I was the person championing for, you know, equality, diversity, making it safe for people to speak up, referring people almost daily to mental health support. But out of a stigma placed on self, I ended up collapsing and burning out after 3 and a half years, 3 and a half years of toxic abuse, bullying, harassment, sabotage at work, sometimes throwing stuff at me believing that I needed to be strong for everyone else. And I think, Chibs, this is how we resonate with them, the, the burnout, where we are just striving to be high achievers for more, more, more. And it got to a point where my physical body just went and give up, and I ended up collapsing at work from burnout where they thought my appendix had ruptured. But if I look back now, I journal the whole experience, which is now my book, and But there were so many telltale signs of physical stuff and also, you know, the anxiety, PTSD, feeling traumatized and personally responsible for everyone else, and the lack of sleep, the sometimes drinking, the over-exercising, under-exercising, binge eating, all of the stress of working 60, 70-hour weeks in a toxic environment that I just went, shh. And that's really where my journey, can you say, began or pivoted, to say the into what I'm doing now, and that's my business, Bullyology.
