"New Way to Work" winners announced

Chris Caceres · December 17, 2009 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/c84

Elance competition hosted on Vator comes to a close; the $10,000 prize winner announced

The Elance "New Way to Work" competition, which was hosted here on Vator, has come to a close and a winner has been selected to receive the grand prize of $10,000 in cash or health insurance. The competition called for startup companies, entrepreneurs and independent professionals to share an inspirational story about the way they work.

The award went to Benjamin Gran, a freelance writer for his blog post "Cubicles are the Phone Booths of the Future." In the post he talks about his disliking of the limitations of working in an office. An excerpt:

"I don’t like having to work “standard hours.” I don’t like having to show up at 9 a.m. (or earlier) and work the same amount of time every day. I don’t like never getting to see daylight (my office has no windows). I don’t like the enforced idleness – I hate those days where even if there’s not enough work to do, you still have to sit there for three more hours, just to “put in your time” and keep up appearances."

Gran then goes on to talk about how Elance has helped him spark his freelance writing career in which says has enabled him to work with clients in Australia, Tokyo, England, Canada, Jordan, and all over the U.S., making more money in two hours of work from wherever, than in two hours sitting in a cube.

I had a quick chat with Gran via email where he told me he would be choosing the $10,000 in cash, and planning to put the funds in a high-interest savings account keeping it as a "cash cushion" to use in starting his own business full-time. Although he is not yet fully free of the cubicle life yet, he plans on getting there soon.

Coming in second place was Salma Jafri and a tie for third Michael Rodrigues and Casey McConnell.

Congrats to all the winner and good luck escaping that cubicle life.

Chris Caceres

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