Well, OK, 'iceberg' may not be the right word

Consultant pilot fish is visiting a potential client with very nice digs. "They had taken over an office that a dot-com had renovated just before biting the dust," fish says. "They had a nice glass-walled server room that exhibited all their computer and switching equipment in their racks."

But fish immediately notices something odd: There's a guy sitting in the big glass room among all the servers -- in his shirt sleeves.

Fish is on his way to meeting an executive, but he takes a moment to rap on the door. It opens, and out comes a system administrator -- along with a blast of heat and the sound of equipment fans screaming at full blast.

"I introduced myself and inquired if his air conditioning had failed," says fish. "He replied with absolutely no clue that he had done anything wrong: 'No, it was kinda cold, so I switched it off. I wanted an office instead of the cubicle they gave me across the hall, but management wouldn't give me one. So I moved myself in here.'"

A few minutes later, at the meeting, fish mentions the little heat problem.

"Oh, so that's why in every company we've ever visited, their server rooms are like meat lockers," she says. "But every time I brought this up with our system administrator sitting in there, he said that the heat was normal. And since he is MCSE-certified, I thought he knew what he was talking about so I never argued the point with him."

Sighs fish, "Just as well we never got the contract. The server room was only the tip of that iceberg!"

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