I think the most useful analogy comes in the form of a classic Greek myth. Sisyphus offends the ancient Greek gods, and he is condemned to forever roll a heavy rock up a hill, watching it roll down again and then rolling the rock back up the hill again.

When Microsoft released Office 2003, IT got to roll the rock up the hill, as it installed the new software. Two weeks later, the rock promptly rolled back down, when Microsoft issued the first "critical" patch for the program. The cycle subsequently got repeated, as each time a patch got applied, Microsoft would issue a whole new set of critical patches.