Data flows faster downhill

It was the peak of the dotcom boom and I worked for a travel agency that was buying out Mom-and-Pop travel shops from Seattle to Miami -- mid-1999, if I remember correctly. I was part of the traveling network team that was responsible for acquisition network and server reviews and employee evaluations of said acquisitions. I was sent off to our recently acquired sister site in Seattle, a mega travel company tha

"OK, we'll cover that topic at a later date," I said, thinking it best to move on. "We can build out a spare server and rack it with the company-required NT4 install and put it in the open section at the bottom of the last rack."

It was Eric's turn to laugh next as he told me, "Well that's fine, if you want the e-mail to be really slow."

Confused, I ask him to explain, expecting to hear that one of the switches was an older model 10MB Ethernet or 4MB token ring or something. Those weren't all that much slower, but some people didn't know that.

"See," he said in a voice rich with condescension, "data flows faster downhill. You should always put servers at the top of a rack with switches below. That way the data from the server is faster to the user."

Wow, did I miss that physics lesson when I was taking my networking class all those years ago? Did the instructor reveal this important tidbit while I was out on a bathroom break? This time I laughed hard. Really hard. "Eric," I said, "you are either pulling my leg or you genuinely believe that crock of bull." His manager then piped up to inform me that Eric's skills were not in question and my review of his knowledge would not determine whether he kept his job and would I please stop insulting him.

So for value-added entertainment and lack of anything else constructive to do under the circumstances, I called my boss and team lead for a conference call. I started out happily, telling them about the server room and its layout, seamless design, and work of art, blah blah. I watched as Cathy, Eric's manager, smiled that I-told-you-off-and-you-had-to-listen smile. Then I hit on the Windows 95A servers and location of said servers with data-flow technical details. There was silence on the line. My boss was furious that I'd bothered him with such idiocy, and nobody seemed to think it was funny.

"If you know better, then you run it!" threatened Eric. Challenge accepted: My boss told him to pack up his things. During the next few months, we unearthed thousands of problems (virus, file corruption, and so on) and a nice stash of porn on those Windows 95 servers as we converted them. Seems Eric's pretty server room was much more impressive than his grasp of gravity.