50 Times People Mishandled Their Tech So Badly It Made Tech Support Cry (Best Of All Time)

"A lot of the content on the subreddit does rather well, except for people coming for actual tech support, they get redirected to the right subreddit,” one of the subreddit’s moderators told one of our colleagues at Bored Panda previously.

“In a time where most of the internet can be incredibly serious and most times saddening or angering, r/techsupportgore is fun because you go on it and you can laugh (and/or cringe) at the crazy posts. Where else can you see a post like, ‘Wow, these cables really are messy’ to ‘A lizard fried my motherboard’ back to back? I love our growing community. They're a bunch of people that just enjoy tech and to some extent, the worst of it.”

The r/techsupportgore subreddit was first created a whopping 12 years ago, way back in 2012.

Over more than a decade, the community has grown to 622k members from all around the globe. It’s mainly composed of tech and IT workers, as well as anyone with a penchant for tech-related comedy and horrors.

Some of us might not care how computers work as long as they do, but we enjoy poking fun at someone who doesn’t take care of their device. But the more familiar you are with IT and its culture, the more painful looking at some of these photos is bound to be.

If you’re any kind of creative or craftsperson, it hurts watching someone disrespect your work tools, whether they’re computers, paintbrushes, or musical instruments.

The team managing the entire community behind the scenes describes the sub as a place that will make you “cringe to the brink of passing out after a few minutes.” According to the moderators, something to keep in mind is that the online group isn’t meant to help people sort out their tech support issues.

The moderators urge you to try reaching out to the r/techsupport subreddit (a separate community) if you need some actual help with your tech. Meanwhile, if you plan on posting on r/techsupportgore, make sure that you don’t post pics of cracked screens or computers coated in dust. Both of these situations are so common that they’re usually not worth sharing. Well, unless things look really atrocious!

The subreddit isn’t just home to photos, though. Videos are welcome, too. However, the moderators urge all of the community members to focus on short-format clips. That means that the videos should not be longer than 30 seconds. According to the mods, “This is plenty of time to show what needs to be shown.”

Tech support, at its core, means solving all kinds of problems related to tech products or services. These workers essentially fix, manage, and maintain various IT systems. It’s an essential job, especially when computers and IT systems are so ubiquitous.

Most often, this support is provided to customers via phone or chat. However, there are times when the customer meets the support staff in person. Say, when they bring in their laptop or phone for fixing. Or if they have issues with their hardware or software at the office.

Tech support workers earn an average of $21.55 per hour in the United States. That amounts to roughly $56,572 per year, according to Indeed. Of course, this is just the average. Some companies, for instance, ‘Oracle,’ pay their tech support employees around $83,614 per year, while the average wage at ‘Novogene Corporation’ clocks in at $69,020.

The most highly paid tech support employees in the US live in Houston, Texas (they earn an average of $62,425 per year), Boston, Massachusetts ($61,937 per year), and Nashville, Tennessee ($61,230 per year).

Workers based in Orlando, Florida, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada, earn slightly less than the US average. Meanwhile, tech support staff also get paid far less, on average, if they’re based in Austin, Texas ($54,045 per year), compared to Houston.

What is the worst thing that’s ever happened to your computer, phone, or other device, Pandas? Have you ever worked in tech support or asked for help from someone in that line of work? Have you ever had to deal with clients who took awful care of their devices? What’s the best and worst experience you’ve had with support staff?

We’d like to hear what you have to say. Swing on by the comments if you have a moment.