I've had a few comments from people that Innocent Bystander "just ain't right" in Internet Explorer. Which doesn't surprise me really, given the issues I've had with the browser before before.

I had a bit of time to spare at work, so I thought I'd check out the problem. See what's going on. I typed in the address, hit Enter and got this screen:

Yep, my site has been blocked by the internet filter and I'm willing to bet that this tag is the culprit.

I could remove the offending tag, but what happens if that wasn't it? What if it's something else on the site thats grabbing the filter's attention? Do I remove the offending item (be it tag, post or image) again? And if that doesn't fix it? How far would I got to ensure my site gets around the filter?

I could keep asking these questions, going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, but that way lies craziness. Self-censoring really isn't an option. Innocent Bystander is my own personal website when I'm working on my own personal website. The best thing to do, I think, is just to keep posting as I am now and damn the filters.

Really, they're the ones missing out.

Of course there is still that problem with my site and IE. But I guess I can just blow the dust off Internet Explorer on the home computer and tool around there. Leaving my work life and sexy blog separate.

Day One - Monday

I arrived at the new job at 10am, after being told to come in some time after 9:30, and was introduced to the coworkers and shown my desk. I barely had enough time to drop my bag before I was into a meeting. That must be a record there. The meeting was a great way for me to discover just how much is actually done there.

After that I was given a stack of guidelines an manuals to flip through. Once I was done I started playing around with the various CMS they use while I waited for the supervisor to finish a conversation. I asked her what I should be doing next, her response was to play around with the content management systems. Score one for initiative!

Day Two - Tuesday

When I walked in to the office I was greeted with a "Happy Day Two!" It's the little things, really.

I was given two tasks: brush up on the department's style guide; and have a look at the intranet. They couldn't find the style guide, so I suggested I look for it when I was on the intranet. There's that initiative again. I ended up finding two guides in a completed unrelated system and spent the next few hours pouring through the 27 page Visual Guide and 112 page Publishing Guide.

After that I was given a few pieces of content work that I threw myself into. Having just about conquered the CMS on Day One, this task was no problem for me. After that it was back into the reading.

At lunchtime noticed something very cool. Tuesday means boxes of fresh fruit are delivered and distributed to various caches around the office. Apples, pear, bananas and oranges. I wonder if the summer months will bring extra variety?

Day Three - Wednesday

Not much to report here (at least according to my notes). I arrived a few minutes after 9am, but was only beaten to the office by one other guy. Yep, I'm still in the public service.

Corporate induction at 10am. The presenter mentioned how cool it was that we got free fruit every week. I had to agree.

Once back at my desk I was given enough work to last me until the end of the day. While working my way through them I even managed to break the CMS. I was then told that it contains a lot of bugs and not to be worried when things like that happen.

Day Four - Thursday

Today marked an auspicious occasion: the first time I'd worn a suit to work.

If I was going to be crafting HTML by hand, I needed something better than Notepad, so installed Firefox and Crimson Edit on my machine. I'm surprised it took this long actually. So far I've managed to resist the urge to install an RSS feed reader and an IM client though.

Due to issues with the CMS I uninstalled IE7 and reverted back to IE6 on my coworkers advice. Hey, if I was breaking the SOE, I might as well go all out. Really, it's the IT department's fault for leaving the machines so open.

I started my professional writing career today, with three articles that will appear in the intranet and weekly ebulletin. Having a bit of time to spare before the end of the day I mocked up a rough HTML page showing how the intranet version would look.

Also today I realised I was not the nerdiest guy in the office. The shocks just keep coming.

Day Five - Friday

Ah Friday. Where normally I'd push the boundaries of the casual dress policy, I instead decided to arrive in full suited regalia - sans tie.

More complex content tasks were given to me today, though I'm quickly learning the limitations of the CMS. Some very interesting bugs have emerged!

I was also shown how to create statistical reports for the sites today. I had over 50 reports to run, but ended up producing them so quickly the analytics guy called bullshit when I told him I was done. He had to see it to believe it.

After spending the first four days admiring the view out my 31st floor window I finally cracked and brought my camera to work to snap off a few shots. These will appear on Flickr once I've cleaned them up a bit. Reflections are a bitch.

I had a lot of fun this week, and that's not just the honeymoon period talking. There's a lot of work coming my way in the future that I look forward to: content changes for subdomains I never touched on, new projects and new content management systems to play around with. Oh yes, I think I'm going to like it here.

While the parents were away on holiday I called up the company my car was insured through, hoping to get the insurance transfered into my name and update a few other details. No worries, they said, we'll send you out some (read: many) forms to fill in.When the pile arrived, I spied a note on the top of page one advising that only the owner of the vehicle can apply for insurance. Given that Dad is the owner of my car (due to other insurance-related fun) I filed away the forms with the expectation that I'd go through them again when Dad was back home. Then, of course, I promptly forgot about them.

On Monday Dad called to say that he'd received a letter from the insurance company saying that my policy had been cancelled due to a non-payment. This was strange news, given that my insurance was direct debited from my account for the last seven years and required exactly zero input from me. I told Dad of my plan to move the insurance into my name and, after a bit of troubleshooting, we figured out that not long after they sent out the transfer forms they cancelled the policy. Because thats what you do to help your customers. You delete them from your system.

Luckily for me Dad was on the case almost straight away and by Tuesday night I was covered under a new policy with a new company. Rating One for life, yo.

Just thinking about those few weeks where I drove around uninsured makes my skin crawl. It's hard enough dealing with my own insurance coverage. I'd hate to have been at the mercy of someone else's insurance company, had our cars attempted some amateur panel beating.