First of all: Yes, I've already searched for the topic, No, i haven't found anything, though i certainly hope this has been posted before

On to business,
I'm part of my schools animation team, but I've encountered a problem which severely limits my productivity: the Z-axis won't work when moving an object, scaling it, etc. Naturally, this has made life difficult.
Has anyone encountered/fixed this problem? Help would be appreciated.
Below is a screenshot, as you can see, the Z-axis is not highlighted when you click on the box. Help pls!