Pity the Payrollers - America's Unsung Heros of the Fiscal Cliff.

It will be natural to sing the praises of our elected leadership after they have hammered out their deal to raise taxes in order to avert the crisis.  To recall that raising taxes is ever always the solution will be just as easy as to forget to honor the unsung heroes of the fiscal cliff - the software people that maintain America's payroll systems. Such is the lot of America's Payrollers that they often do not know what parameters to enter into their systems until after the last possible moment.  They know they must make payroll - or else.  So they enter the worst case scenario into their systems, generate the checks, and know all the while that less than understanding co-worker complaints await them. Before they generate the checks they must test their system with the worst case parameters.  Usually this work is done at the last minute, i.e., over the holiday season...