Phil,

A quick and dirty workaround, set up a personal web page, with nothing except a solid background, preferably on a URL you have registered a long time ago. Assign a transparent image or even a "dot" somewhere on the page to access your VPN or simply give yourself remote access to your ISP connection at home via user/pass to the machine you are on. If your personal web page is whitelisted, you can access this site and all of them that might be flagged. It is really hard to detect. Not foolproof, but it works majority of the time. If your IT guru is really savvy, they will detect it and they need to be bought a bag of donuts and Doritos. Most IT Admins never get this granular as they are usually super busy to do so.

Z