2014-09-29
Explanation
The Joke
A woman dies and arrives at "Sysadmin Heaven," where a robed figure tells her they will not even review her life for sin if she can just help get a computer to talk to the network. She discovers the system is running a ten-year-old edition of Windows because the sysadmin "didn't like the new version," switched back, but then executables would not run, so he downloaded and installed every executable file he could find. When she asks "But why would... but you..." the sysadmin excuses himself for a moment, and the final panel reveals he is actually the Devil, laughing maniacally -- the whole scenario was a trick, and this is actually Hell.
The Humor
The comic works on multiple levels for anyone who has done tech support. The humor begins with the idea that even heaven needs IT help, and the sysadmin's described behavior is a perfect distillation of every nightmare tech support call: using an ancient OS, downgrading because the new version is unfamiliar, and then "fixing" compatibility issues by downloading random executable files from the internet (which would inevitably be malware). The reveal that this is actually Hell is the punchline -- the joke being that having to provide tech support to someone this incompetent for eternity IS hell. It plays on the common sentiment among IT professionals that tech support feels like eternal punishment.
References
The comic references common frustrations in IT support, particularly users who resist software updates and create security nightmares by downloading unverified files. The "downloading every executable" behavior is a reference to how naive users often get infected with malware.