Wireless Network Printing Problem - Help Needed

I have a 3 PC wireless network at home. The printer is connected to the
desktop which runs Win 98 SE. The other 2 computers are laptops - one
running XP and one running 2000. All 3 machines can see each other and
share files.
My issue concerns printing with the XP laptop.

This computer is both an office and a home machine. At the office I am
connected to a LAN and my default printer is an office network printer.
When I am at home on the wireless network I have varying levels of delay
when I try to change my printer in a program from the LAN printer to the
home printer. In IE it will make the change in about a minute. However, in
Excel XP or Word XP the change takes over 5 minutes and if I move the mouse
over the printer setup dialogue box it will say not responding,

Is this normal? Is there any way to make this faster? I will say that if I
boot into the machine with the home printer set as default it works faster.

My office IT Dept. said that XP has a "live connection" to the LAN printer
even when I am not on the LAN and that it constantly searches for it - this
is the reason for the delay.

I want to add that when I am waiting inside Excel for the printer to switch
the laptop is communicating across the wireless network as I can see the
lights on the access point going crazy. My wireless set up is Cisco. My
internet connection is DSL.

TIA

Mark