It's John Cook, not me, having these problems. I don't tolerate these types of problems ;-)

>I suggest you don't take it personally, just go to this person and explain to him that in order for the application to be usable, it needs to respond quickly, that you have done everything in your hands to optimize it and that the only problems that aren't possible to rule out are in HIS hands.

IMO that would be a mistake. If this person already thinks you're incompetent there's no way he'll believe you know enough about networks to optimize your app properly. An admin will typically accept an argument like this only from another admin, not a programmer or end-user.

>Or, ask for his help. Hey Sam, I'm having this problem and you're the only person that can help me. Stroke his ego; this works most of the time.

Ugh. Might work, but if it does it's only feeding the fundamental problem, not addressing it.

If you've worked as an admin you know how important attitude is. This person clearly needs an attitude adjustment.