MS Communicator

I don't know - from all indications I consider this Communicator software to be a corporate approved spy-ware program. We had an off-site last week and my boss says to me a one point "I noticed that your Communicator shows you as offline most of the time - what's up with that?" I told him that it was (and still is) causing problems with the startup of my computer so I disabled the launch on startup option. But now, knowing that he is watching, I make sure to turn it on every morning. I wrote a quick little batch file that runs when I launch Windows - basically all the batch file does is delay the start of Communicator until everything else has a chance to get started and my system is stable. But in the end it just boils down to electronic surveillance by my boss...