This sounds like a "Out of Stack Space" error when running a Sub Procedure in Access 2003. When you run a Visual Basic Sub procedure that calls another procedure, you may receive the following error message:

Run-time error '28':
Out of stack space

CAUSE
This error message appears when one procedure in your module calls another procedure, and that procedure calls another procedure, and so on. The error message occurs in this case because when you call one sub procedure from another procedure, the first procedure is not unloaded from memory until the procedure that it called is finished. Because of this behavior, if you continue to call a procedure from another procedure, you may run out of stack space, or memory allotted for the macro, before the last procedure is called.

WORKAROUND
To work around this problem, call individual sub procedures from one main procedure, instead of calling one sub procedure from another sub procedure, and so on. For example, if you are calling sub procedures as in the following example

   Sub one()
      two
   End Sub

   Sub two()
      three
   End Sub

   Sub three()
      four
   End Sub
  
you can call these sub procedures from the first procedure as in the following example:   

   Sub Main()
      one
      two
      three
      four
   End Sub
    

Windows XP and now Vista are the main operating platforms for QODBC. I don't have any other reports of "Out of Stack" MS Access 2003 runtime errors. I suggest you run the query in question in VB Demo and then as a new pass-through query in Access to determine what's causing the problem.

See: How do I create a Pass-Through Report using Microsoft Access 2003? for more information.

Let's get away from the payroll tables, how does a:

SELECT * from Customer

go?