Last week, 3M workers in France held the company's chief executive hostage for two days in anger over layoffs. They didn't gain much – just a promise from 3M to return to the negotiating table to discuss redundancy deals – but I can imagine they certainly got some satisfaction from taking revenge on the big boss.

Do you ever get the sense that you could do so much more, if only your employer would allow you to? You're not the only one. As reported by the Guardian, 40% of surveyed employees in the UK (I'm sure the Canadian figures are comparable) feel that they have more skills than their jobs required.

If you're feeling underutilized, speak out and volunteer for additional projects or talk to your manager about increasing/changing some of your duties. If you're a manager, take the time to ask your employees (perhaps during a review) whether there's anything else they'd like to do, or if they have any interests beyond their daily routines. If a person doesn't feel challenged, he or she may end up looking for greener pastures. It's kind of like that really, really smart kid in school who was bored so skipped class so much and eventually dropped out.

Here's a neat trick I learned last week from Ed2010 member Syd:

All you need to generate PDF files of your article clippings is a library card. On the Toronto Public Library website, do an author search in the magazine database for your name. All your articles pop up and you can simply email yourself the PDF. No tedious scanning.

Every year I look forward to conference season. But I have to say, I'm a little disappointed in MagNet's 2009 lineup. It's a little flush on offerings for writers compared to other magazine departments; 28 seminars for writers versus 10 for editors – nearly a third as many. (This is how the other departments stack up: 23 seminars for management, 12 for digital, 9 for ad sales, 9 for circulation, 6 for small magazines, 5 for design and 4 for production.)

And some of those writing seminars: selling your book, novel writing, romance and erotica novels, book publishing trends, screenwriting. I'm a little confused because I thought MagNet was a magazine publishing conference. In fact, from the website: "MagNet is Canada’s premiere public policy, professional development and networking conference for magazine professionals" [my itals]. Can someone enlighten me as to why the diversified curriculum? I'm not being snide – I really want to know.

(First the salary report, now the conference lineup. There's just no pleasing me this week.)

If you missed it, take a look at the compensation study released last week by Magazines Canada and the cultural Human resources Council. It's nice to be armed with info like this when you're negotiating a salary, but I sure wish they had broken it up by circulation or company size. Is it just me or do the median salaries seem neither to reflect standard incomes at the big publishers, nor at the smaller companies?

Other salary resources:
• Masthead Salary Survey, 2006
• Ed2010 Salary Reports (US)
• Folio Editorial Salary Survey, 2008 (US)