maybe the best idea, going along with what dean said, is to talk to your admin about it. tell him reasons why using AIM within the company will make everyone more productive, by increasing communication between team members, as well as between different levels of the company. also, if someone is out sick, they can still be easily and quickly contacted if they are online at home. everyone here uses AIM all the time. it's faster, and makes sending a URL or bits of code so much easier than sending stupid one line emails.

of course, mentioning that may change his mind, but then he might want to just run an AIM server internally (which you can do) which still wouldn't let you talk to katie. hahah. at least you can get on eZabel!