Don't expect a bigger raise this year unless you are a CEO probably:

[EV_Ares]

According to our crystal ball, your salary increase will be just so-so this year. You're also more likely to catch a cold in the office. Here's what to expect at work in 2008.
By Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer

-- It's a presidential election year, of course. It's also the first year in which the leading edge of the humongous Baby Boom generation (those born in 1946) will be eligible to start collecting partial Social Security benefits, at age 62. But 2008 will differ from 2007 in some other ways as well, not all of them good.

Consider, for instance, a poll last month by ComPsych (www.compsych.com), a major provider of employee assistance programs and other outsourced human-resources services. The firm surveyed 1,000 employees of its client companies nationwide and found that 83% plan to come to work even if they are sick, up from 77% the last time ComPsych asked this question two years ago.

More than one in three (37%, up from 34% in the earlier poll)) said their workload is just too heavy to allow for time off, and 21% (up from 17% in 2005) said they plan to save up their own sick time for when their children are ill.

"Employees are pushing the limits of their health and showing up to work at all costs," notes Dr. Richard Chaifetz, ComPsych's CEO. He says the trend is driven in large part by "economic uncertainty and the significant debt loads taken on by consumers in the past two years."

That means you're more likely to be working alongside a contagious colleague (ah-choo!) - just one more reason to telecommute, if you can.

((entire article @ link below))

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/02/news/economy/new.year.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008010308

[NeedleCast]

1. company I work for discourages sick employees from coming in

Just gets other people sick. If I've got anything beyond a cold, I say home unless I'm on the road, in which case I usually don't have a choice. I don't think I'd work at a grind-stone office that required me to be so busy all the time that I felt like I couldn't take vacation.

[malta blue]

2. Like the folks mentioned in the article, I save my sick

time for when my daughter is sick. She is only 8 and I can't leave her home alone. I also end up using all of my personal/vacation time for snow days, MLK day, Columbus Day, all those days that my company does not give us the time off for.

If I am lucky, we get to go on a vacation....