Mobile translation office in Spain

September 2007had me scrambling around Malaga, Spain in shorts and sandals, lugging a laptop to various spots that had Wi-Fi signals; I was trying to operate my Los Angeles translation service while abroad.. I sometimes went to the Edificio Negro government building near Avenida Andalucia. There they had a nice cafeteria. I'd order a cafe con leche and open up my laptop. Took a while for my HP computer to start up, then I'd connect to the network that was usually working in the building. No place to plug in, so I only had about two hours' power.
I did what I usually do in my agency office in L.A., except there was a lot more distraction: pretty Spanish women, noise of clinking coffee cups and expresso machine, the generally loud Spanish conversation that you encounter in Andalucia, plates of sandwiches and tapas being slapped down on tables, waiters yelling orders, etc.
The time difference was another thing: When it was 9:00 a.m. in Malaga, it was already 6:00 p.m. in L.A. So, it was the end of the business day on the West Coast while mine was just starting. All my replies to queries, request for quotes on translation projects would not be read until the next day in California. If I had to set up project, I first needed to contact my available translators in L.A. or abroad, forward a document to them, and then wait until the next day to get confirmation. Then another email to the client, unless he called me next morning PST and I would answer a call around midnight in Malaga, when it was already 9 a.m. in California. Pretty crazy. I had to stay up from 12 midnight until 5 a.m. in Spain to field calls from L.A.
I got a call forwarding service, with a 310 number, so clients could call me in L.A. The call was re-routed to my Siemens global cell phone (with Spanish SIMS card). There was a European dial tone that the clients would here, and often they would ask if they were calling in L.A. I told them that it was a no charge call and forwarded to my Spanish cell while I was sojourning there for a few months.
Clients were uneasy about dealing with an L.A. translation agency that was being operated, even temporarily , from abroad.

Logistics problems: Let's say I got a call at 1 p.m. in Torremolinos, Spain, which
Torremolinos, Spain. November 2007(I set up a translation project while walking the streets using my global cell phone) , site of James Michener's bestselling novel, The Drifters.

I actually did once. It would be 10 p.m. in L.A. I usually don't get calls that late at night. Then, I would talk to the translation client, give him a quote based on number of words in the document, then ask him to email it to my Los Angeles translation service address. If he did it that day, I could go to an Internet cafe, forward it to a tranlator...then the necessity to send a purchase order and invoice and getting everything confirmed.( At that point , I didn't have credit card billing, so the client could pay in advance, so I always requested some type of identification number like a drivers' license). So, there was a lot of waiting and following up (meaning getting on Internet wherever) on projects in process or being set up the day before...
So, the big problem was I didn't have continual always-ready Internet access. I could have used FON Network and connected to local home networks in the Costa Del Sol area, but at that time I was ignorant of its existence. And, getting a landline Internet subscription is a big hassle for a foreigner. You have to sign on for a year, have a bank account, etc. So, it was just me and my laptop and a 4-band cell phone w/SIMS card for Spain.
I did use Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem for a while, but it was really expensive. Within 5 days of really minimal surfing, just checking emails, I ate up $50 of credit on the phone card!!
I tried connecting to an unsecured network from the 13th story of my friend's flat in Malaga
©2007 Patrick (California Esoteric Publishers)
Photo: Carranque district, Malaga, Spain, looking towards Torremolinos.
and, actually I almost connected to a linksys, using some generic passwords. No luck.
Another method of handling translation projects was just the "honor system". With tried and true translators I would forward jobs or their contact info and have them complete and bill the translation project on their own, directly with the client. When I returned to L.A. , my commission check was waiting, fortunately.
Overall, there was a lot of sweaty, frantic Wi-Fi signal- hunting trips through chaotic and noisy Malaga, a city I lived in for 3 years in the 90's; however, business did slide and I found myself with a net loss of a few thousand dollars while on my business experiment trip. The Malaga section of my website only yielded freelancer applications for jobs and a few interviews with translator candidates for my agency.
The benefit of that three-month sojourn, in any case, was my re-integration into Spanish society for a while. I improved my Castellano, the lisped original Spanish language, and experienced the great changes in Malaga that had taken place since my 90's residence there.