These Three Burnt-Out Workers Escaped Their 60-Hour Weeks. You Can, Too.

You come home from work. You’d like to read that book you’ve been working at. Or maybe watch that movie or show your friends have been recommending. You’d like to, but when you turn on the TV or flip to your bookmark, you realize that all your processing power has been used up at work. You were there for half the day, after all.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Here’s how three people were where you are and how they made the change to reclaim their time.

Getting off the road

Dallin Sly_{From Trucking to Coding: Dallin Sly’s TripleTen Story} knew he had to put in the work to provide. He had a wife and a family. So after working in food service and as a furniture mover, he got a commercial driver’s license and took up a career as a trucker. Wanting to be home more, he switched to driving regionally. The hope was that this would help him spend more time with his family. But the reality didn’t match up.

It was a 60 to 70 hour work week, generally closer to 70 hours. So I still didn't see anybody because I would get home at 4 a.m., go to sleep, wake up at 11 a.m., be around for an hour or two, and then I'd have to go right back and work.

Dallin Sly TripleTen grad

Not only was it a grueling schedule — spending all that time driving was also bad for his health. “It's terrible on your body. I gained 85 pounds plus while I was a driver,” he said. So something needed to change. Software engineering had always hovered in the back of his mind as a field to pursue. With all these incentives pushing him forward, he decided to enroll in TripleTen.

Initially it was difficult, but with gumption, he mastered the material. “I always felt like I was falling behind,” he said. “[But] looking back, I wasn't, and I was learning at the same pace as probably most other students, and I was probably right along with all the other very intelligent students that went through the course.”

Once he finished his course, he was ready for a new career. With the help of a TripleTen coach, he honed his resume, portfolio, cover letters, and soft skills. Soon enough, he was called in for a job interview with his local board of county commissioners. He thought he bombed it, but the following Friday, he was told he got the job. Now, he’s a Programmer Analyst, and he’s found the time for life he was looking for.

I'm able to spend more time with my family. My wife's pregnant right now, and being able to be there for her, take care of her through this pregnancy, is special. Because for those first two, I was gone for a lot of it. Dallin Sly, TripleTen grad

No longer an automaton

There are numerous ways for unforgiving schedules to drain you. Sometimes, filling these long hours with deep unending tedium can make them feel even longer. Such was the case for Pedro Gomes_{Future-Proofing a Career: Pedro Gomes’s TripleTen Story}.

He was tasked with drudgery — manually looking through Excel files to determine pension rights and how much companies should invest. That would have been bad enough, but the time he had to dedicate to it made it worse.

I used to work 10-12 hours per day, and I was like, 'This is awful, I need something different.'

Pedro Gomes TripleTen grad

There was one last thing that Pedro knew for certain. His job could easily be done by AI. So he started looking for new jobs. The thing was that the positions he was interested in were asking for expertise he didn’t have. The solution? Getting that expertise. He decided to acquire those new skills with TripleTen.

He started the TripleTen Data Analytics program, which is now TripleTen’s Business Intelligence Analytics (BIA) program. Even though he was still working full-time, he managed to make space to study. "It was the perfect timing because I really had the motivation and wanted to learn something. And it was winter, so I didn't really do much besides sit at home or watch TV," he said.

And each time he mastered something, it just fueled his urge to keep learning. “The most motivating thing was the feeling of accomplishment when I finished something, it worked, and did what I wanted it to do,” he said.

So he was eager to keep learning in the career he pursued. After graduating, he caught the attention of one company, which sent him a test task he was more than ready for. Acing it, he was offered a position. Following that, he’s harnessed his curiosity and has kept climbing the ranks through other companies. Now, he’s a Data Engineer and working remotely — achieving the career he had dreamed of.

The glamour wearing off

Just the word “Hollywood” can be alluring. The images it conjures are often what attract people to LA in the first place. AC Slamet_{A Producer Switches to Tech to Find Time for Life: AC Slamet’s TripleTen Story} was one of these people.

He was a producer on unscripted shows. Often, these shows needed to film the stars’ holiday events, and that meant that AC needed to be on set with the crew, not back home with his family. And not only did this job ask him to sacrifice making memories with his loved ones. It also demanded an excessive amount of his time just as a fundamental reality of the position.

A normal shoot day for producers would be 15 hours.

AC Slamet TripleTen grad

This was unsustainable. “The toll it took on me health-wise — it can be a very stressful job and obviously physically taxing because of the long hours,” he said. In addition, when he looked at his fellow producers, he saw that some of them could go months without seeing their kids. That wasn’t the life he wanted to lead.

It was at that time that he worked on a show about tech. And it intrigued him. He started doing his research into how he could break into the industry and found TripleTen. Like Pedro, he also went for what was at the time the Data Analytics program and is now our BIA program. But unlike Pedro, he committed himself to his studies full-time because, according to him, “I knew that I needed that extra time.”

As his time with the bootcamp wrapped up, he seized the opportunity to join an externship, a hands-on learning opportunity in which he tackled real tech challenges with an external company. He still values it: “That experience was invaluable. It was a taste into what real-life data analytics is.”

With all that, as well as help from TripleTen career experts, he landed a new job as a Data Analyst only three months after finishing the program. And the life he leads now is a major upgrade from the hours he used to work.

Gosh, it’s a stark difference. I work eight hours every day, Monday to Friday. I have my weekends off, which is amazing. AC Slamet, TripleTen grad

See if a bootcamp is right for you, too

The element that unifies these grads who managed to reclaim their time? Learning a new field with TripleTen. See if this is the path for you too by taking our quick bootcamp quiz here.