40 Times Tech Support Just Had To Laugh

Redditor and tech support agent “gr_vq” knew they had their work cut out for them with this tangled web of cables. So, they took the sensible option. They unplugged the whole lot, informed the client they wouldn’t be able to use the internet for a few hours and tidied the mess one wire after another. Heroic.

Firstly, how filthy is that power-board? Seriously, someone clean that thing. Secondly, check out the pièce de résistance: it’s been screwed to the table leg. We’re going to go out on a limb and say that drilling a screw through a motherboard isn’t a great plan. If you want the thing to work, that is.

Look, we get it. Answering the phone at work’s a nuisance at best, and an endurance test in abject misery at worst. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to place the thing in an oven, especially not if you then give it to tech support to salvage it. It’s melted, buddy. That’s game over.

We can’t even tell what this repair job was before it got mangled. Was it a laptop battery? A charger? It’s a mystery. To be honest, it reminds us of the Friends episode where Ross tries to exchange his couch, which has been cut in half, for one that’s not cut in half. We think it’s past the point of no return, dude.

Sometimes we have to wonder whether people think tech support are literally magicians. Take this situation, for example. That power-board’s done for, we’re afraid. No saving it. Instead, simply let it be a lesson to office workers everywhere: don’t plug your space heater into the same place as your computer.

When tech support is told a printer isn’t working anymore, they’ll run through all the likely causes in their head. Quite often it’s a problem with the printer’s ink cartridges. But we wonder how often they see something like this, where the cartridge has just exploded in a barrage of cyan?

CPUs are extremely important to the proper functioning of a computer. Unfortunately, they’re also highly delicate. So if for some reason the pins bend, you’ll more than likely have hardware errors. You can try straightening the pins with a credit card or tweezer – but you’ve got to have a steady hand.

We’ve had plenty of poorly packaged items turn up on our doorstep dented beyond recognition. It’s mega frustrating. But we’ve never seen anything quite like this, in which a bunch of laptop computers were transported the same way someone would send some paperback novels. Criminal.

This one shocked us to our core, as we’d never heard of anybody doing this in the real world. But here it is, clear as day: apparently, some people use hanging PC cables to rest their feet under their desks. These people give us instant anxiety. It’s just not right.

This image looks like a crime scene, and office equipment is the victim. Look at that explosion of black toner all over the floor; whoever attacked this poor defenseless printer must have been determined to finish the job. Hopefully, tech support can identify the shoe prints and bring the perp to justice.

If ever a picture was capable of instantly making a tech support worker come out in a cold sweat, it’s this one. This is the fire hazard to end all fire hazards, and a truly terrifying sight to behold. If nothing else, it’s proof that non-professionals should never do their own wiring. That way madness lies.

When tech support received a query about this security camera, the customer complained that the camera often flickered “to a fuzzy brown image.” This is certainly accurate, considering it was looking at the backside of a nesting bird. It even looks like the bird removed the glass somehow. It’s clearly a MacGyver bird.

This is either a remarkable piece of ingenuity that improves internet signal tenfold, or it’s the height of ridiculousness. To be honest, it might even be both. If nothing else, though, mounting your internet router to the wall with the help of a green fishing net at least sets up some “surfing the net” puns.

Placing your space heater near your desktop PC tower isn’t a great idea. While, yes, it means you’ll be toasty warm when playing games or surfing the web, it also means the tower’s at risk of overheating. Then melting. And, make no mistake, melting your computer is bad.

Sometimes in tech, as in life, it’s best to know when to call it a day. When your laptop’s being held together by two clamps, making it look like a warped optical illusion, perhaps it’d be wise to get a new one. Lest this one actually blow up in your face.

Here’s a piece of advice, feel free to use it: don’t put a drawing pin through your ethernet cable. Like, just don’t do it. Ever. Even if, for some reason, you want the cable to be secured to your desk. Just back away from the cable. Please.

Redditors guessed that this horrifying build-up was composed of dust and cat hair, held together by the tar given off by cigarette smoke. Tech support revealed the owner was indeed a smoker, but that wasn’t the best part. They said the dust mass was so thick that it held its shape perfectly while being removed. Barf.

In July 2020 comedian Samantha Ruddy found out the hard way that maple syrup and computers aren’t the best of friends. While moving house, she packed her laptop in the same box as her trusty bottle of Canadian delight. Naturally, it leaked all over her computer. Silver lining? It was now an unexpectedly delicious laptop.

Look, we know loading a printer with paper isn’t exactly the most fun office task. But it’s pretty essential, so it’s probably a good idea to have it done by an employee who understands how these things work. Removing the packaging from the paper seems blindingly obvious to us, but yet, here we are.

We’ve all dropped our smartphones in water. We’ve also all been told to put them in a bowl of rice in an attempt to dry out the inner workings. What we’ve not been told, though, is to put rice inside the phone, which is what this person did. Whoops.

One school trip. Six electrical sockets. Around 70 students and teachers. A veritable smorgasbord of devices plugged into said sockets. One almighty fire hazard. You know, we remember going on school trips in our day with only our friends to talk to and maybe a portable Discman for entertainment! Kids these days.

Using a screen protector with your smartphone is sensible. But keeping the ill-fitting screen protector from your old phone when you upgrade to a new one’s far from sensible. That tiny piece of plastic isn’t protecting anything, bud.

Here’s some sage advice that you don’t need to have any tech support know-how to understand: don’t tape over your computer fan. It’s there to cool the computer down while it’s working. You wouldn’t block a ceiling fan at home, right? So why would you block this one?

This tech support worker was confronted by a customer saying, “My PC won’t turn on.” A quick look at the back of the desktop tower revealed the culprit: a melted power supply unit. We imagine the customer knew this was the issue. Because PSUs don’t usually come that way. Surprising, we know.

Heat guns are usually used by tradespeople for tasks such as thawing frozen pipes or stripping paint. They are not used for drying off laptops if they have any liquid accidentally spilled on them. The employee who brought this warped keyboard to tech support found this out the hard way.

The tech support workers at T-Mobile in Germany had their very own Indiana Jones moment when they encountered something shocking at their network unit. Yes, they found three snakes coiling themselves around the wires. To quote Indy himself, “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?”

This toner explosion’s so dramatic that it might actually be outside the purview of tech support. The carbon dust in toner can be carcinogenic and is hazardous to the human respiratory system, so this job likely requires a specialist cleaning crew to save the day. So, you may laugh, but then be sure to call Safety-Kleen.

This jumbled pile of wires and cockroach-dropping covered internet equipment was found in a restaurant. Yes, an establishment in which human people consume food. It’s enough to make us want to hurl. Somebody please alert the health inspector, because tech support are in over their heads on this one.

Redditor “ravyyy” posted this preposterously dirty desktop, which he revealed was in an Irish cloth manufacturer where he’d just begun to work. Employees told him the PC hadn’t even been turned on for a decade. It also looked like no one had even contemplated running a cloth over it for twice as long. Gross.

Newsflash, people: your mouse isn’t supposed to look like this. Maybe wipe the thing every once in a while, okay? Or, at the very least, wipe it before it gets into the hands of tech support, who’ll undoubtedly broadcast your secret shame across the internet for all to see. Those are the rules.

It boggles our mind that anyone would ever set a candle on top of their desktop computer. But, even if someone did that, the sheer amount of time they’d have to leave it unattended to achieve this result is also hard to fathom. It’s almost like they wanted to kill the poor machine.

To properly react to this hospital server room’s mass of cables, we’ll turn to reddit. User “TJ_McHoonigan” wrote, “As a hospital IT person, I was ready to see this and post something along the lines of ‘that’s not even bad, you should see ours.’ After seeing that image, I’m happy to work with our spaghetti wiring.”

If you have a problem with your Zebra Thermal Label Printer, you may just take inspiration from this amusing tech support story. Sometimes you can troubleshoot for 48 hours straight to find out why things aren’t working properly. But all you really need to do is turn the machine upside down. Then it works fine. Give it the ol’ switcheroo.

These days, technology’s confusing. For instance, this redditor posted about their grandma thinking their iPad was a cutting board. Now, while it’s funny to have a chuckle at poor granny’s expense, it did give us pause. Why? Because it does kind of look like a cutting board! What’s grandma supposed to think?!

Redditor “raptordrew” was shocked when a client handed him their fully shrink-wrapped iMac, complaining that it wouldn’t switch on. The customer had been running it that way since purchase in 2015. Amazingly, they wanted to keep the wrap in place, even when drew told them it wasn’t allowing the vents to, you know, vent.

Everyone hates internet ads. They’re infuriating, especially if they’re pointing you in the direction of something an algorithm knows you’ll want to buy. Why pay for an ad blocker, though, when you can just do what this redditor’s ingenious aunt did? Take that, internet! Now that portion of the screen will never be visible!

Picture the scenario. Your laptop hinge has broken. Propping it up against the wall’s only a temporary fix. Then you have a bright idea: what if you gave it some new hinges? Couple bucks from a hardware store, drill them in, hey presto! Job done. Only now you’ve drilled through the battery and the laptop’s dead. Oops.

Kids are very literal. This is sometimes a joy, and sometimes it leads to awkwardness. But in this case, it’s downright hilarious. After all, you tell your kid you want a wireless mouse, and they see yours with a pesky wire sticking out of it? They’re just doing their parent a solid!

To understand why this battery looks more like a soon-to-burst pillow, we’ll hand things over to redditor “mbiz05.” He pointed out that a battery has an anode and a cathode, and if they get too warm, a crystal substance begins to form. That in turn results in a short circuit, which releases gasses that puff the battery up. Science!

We love this customer. When asked to ship their virus-afflicted PC to tech support and mark it “infected,” they did just that. The “infectious substance” sticker is a particularly nice touch. Can you imagine if that was how computer viruses worked? We’d all be wearing biohazard suits just to play Call of Duty.