If you were really smart you would lobby your IT department to change the ridiculously short timeout, and protest by not working when it locks on you during normal pauses.
Of course it's a balance, but think of the wasted productivity from a 2 minute timeout with stupid password requirements like that. That incurs a cost.
I bet they also have many other wonderful ideas and overly-bureaucratic processes that are strangling efficiency and preventing innovation.
Look, I get why some of these policies are in place -- a bunch of it stems from locking down our systems and protecting critical data due to various Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Plus, sometimes smart people do dumb things, and it leads to bad things (e.g, see the LinkedIn incident) [1].
But man, oh man, is it annoying! Especially if I'm in my own home, with no one around, and I otherwise get my work done.