The new job is working back in an investment bank for the first time for several years. It’s going to take some getting used to. Everything about the technical environment is completely tied down. There’s a very scary firewall between me and the outside world. And my workstation is completely locked down. Currently I can’t install any new software (apparently that can be changed with permission from my line manager).
The biggest downside so far is that I’ve had to use Internet Explorer for the last week. For the last couple of years I’ve only ever used it occasionally for checking how badly standards-compliant web sites break in it. I can’t remember the last time I used it as my main browser – it’s possible that I never have.
And it’s terrible. Oh, I’m aware that the problems are largely a case of it not being what I’m used to, but I’m have having real problems being productive using it. There are so many things that I’m missing. Tabbed browsing, incremental searches and so many useful extensions. I’m sure there are similar add-ons available for IE, but remember I currently can’t install any new software.
I’m sure I could get used to it, but I’m not sure that I want to. Of course, even if I get Firefox installed I’ll still have to use IE a lot more than I’m used to. The web site that I’m building is for internal users only, and all (or certainly the vast majority) of the users will be using IE, so that’s the only platform that I need to target.
It’s a bit depressing to move away from the New Media industry and to find such a large company that still relies so heavily on Microsoft. I’m sure that the same would be true in any number of large companies.
It’s all very sad.
Money’s good tho’ :-)
Of course, now you can really give your blog a good going over for the bits that don’t display well in IE :-)Welcome to the dark side. Mwah ha ha ha !
Well, as long as the money is good :)