Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

service-3

2023-02-20 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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service-3
Votey panel for service-3
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Explanation

This comic is a riff on job interviews and customer service. A demon (or devil-like figure) is interviewing for a position at a company. When asked what makes them want to work there, the demon explains their prior experience: they kept victims in a darkened basement, inflicting agony for years at a time. When the interviewer asks what the demon wishes to do, the demon says "a lifetime in database management." The interviewer notes that 20% of their time would be customer management, and the demon says "I wasn't done" -- implying the torturous basement experience IS the customer service qualification. The joke satirizes how customer-facing work (especially in tech/database management) can feel like torture, and how demonic cruelty maps perfectly onto corporate customer service roles.

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