Can I ask you (and others in a similar boat) a question about your work environment? When you say "I have to use IE at work," do you mean at the exclusion of other browsers? I too have to have IE6 at work (many old business apps require it), but I can also run Firefox, Chrome, Flock, Safari, etc. And I don't mind having multiple browsers open, in fact, I just usually do naturally, without any impetus.
Does you workplace lock it down so you have only one browser?