Our Zirtual Assistants are parents, world travelers, former corporate leaders – they’re as unique as the clients they help on a daily basis. We love Zirtual’s diversity and want to showcase it. Our ZA Spotlight gives you some insight to our rockstar roster of assistants one ZA at a time.
Who’s the ZA? Laura P.
Where does she live? She’s a digital nomad! Traveling to and working in a different city every week.
When did Laura join Zirtual? Summer of 2013
What do you love most about working virtually? The best part about working virtually is having the freedom and flexibility to work from anywhere and everywhere. Working virtually has allowed me to travel full-time for the past two years – I don’t think your regular 9-to-5 office job would be down with that! Even though I find myself working those hours some weeks, I look out my window to a different view every week and have a new place to explore on the weekends.
What first attracted you to Zirtual? Obviously the flexibility and ability to work remotely was a huge draw, but the thing that really sold me was the overwhelmingly positive feedback everyone had about working as a ZA and having a ZA. People were raving about everything Zirtual all over social media and in every review I read. I knew there had to be something special and different about Zirtual. It turns out there is – the value everyone here places on excellence is infectious.
What do you do when you need to relax? I’d like to think that my lifestyle is relatively stress-free, but when I do need to relax, being in nature or doing something with my hands usually helps calm my nerves. I’ll either take the dogs for a walk, maybe go on a hike, work on a quilt or whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
What’s your favorite childhood book? I have fond memories of reading Fanny at Chez Panisse by Alice Waters, pioneer of the slow food movement and owner of the famous Chez Panisse in Berkeley. That would probably explain how I became such a foodie!
BONUS FUN: If you could meet any author, who would it be? Why? John Steinbeck! He strikes me as a very salt-of-the-earth kind of person and his writing is beautiful. I’d love to talk to him about his travels across America.
Laura P. documents her nomadic lifestyle on her travel blog ‘The Democratic Travelers.’ She and her travel partners John Ellis & four-legged pal Bullet, also won National Geographic’s 2013 Travelers of the Year – be sure to follow her travels on Instagram!