Apparently, IE — the browser of choice for a generation of lemmings and sheep — breaks for no reason at all. Which is not to say that it’s unbreakable; it’s to say that the damned browser needs no reason, apparently, to break away on it’s own and run screaming from the crowd, off to do things in it’s own little way. Normally, this doesn’t bother me; most of the work I do for freelance clients is very simple stuff, and requires nothing fancy; all the experimental stuff that I play with (mostly CSS) is for my own site only, for which i have the benefit of ignoring users who won’t download a better browser (sorry, but it’s my party, and I’ll be an elitist prick if i want to).

Unfortunately — and you knew this was coming, right? — IE is the choice browser of a dying generation, and that dying generation just happens to be majority at the office (by office, I mean the tens of thousands of people that I program for, not my immediate bosses). And a lot of the time, I can’t count on simple to be the way things are going to get done – this is the IT department, damn it, and we’ve got to look Kewl and Hip like all the other kids out there.

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts. – Richard Bach, Illusions

I’m tenacious, though, and and enough Google searching led me to a hack that cleared up the problem du jour. As irritated as I am — if there were any Microsoft sales calls going on here in the last half day, I probably lost someone’s commission for them — I’m reminded of the fact that, in my life so far, there’s not been a problem that couldn’t be solved. Perhaps not easily, perhaps not quickly — in fact, maybe not until much later. But I think that all problems are solvable; even NP complete, that wonderful group of mathematical Holy Grails, are not labeled as impossible.

I’m not suggesting that any one of us is capable of confronting our problems head on and alone; this is even taking into account that we all have different ideas of what a problem is. Probably most obstacles in our way are within our own power to overcome; they might require a different perspective in order to view the solution, or perhaps a different set of tools than we imagine we should be using.

There’s nothing wrong with seeking help, though — whether it be Googling in hopes that some random stranger out in the interweb has had the same problems and blogged about them, or calling a professional, or assembling a team of experts. Perhaps it requires a group mind to clear the way ahead, or just someone with a fresh eye.

What is wrong is giving up. There’s no reason to give up, just as there’s no reason to think an unworkable solution will work after you’ve already tried it 216 times without success.

Both are extremes; satisfaction is found in the middle. Just like most other things, I’ve found.