How was I supposed to know that would delete the program itself and all the data. My supervisor yelled at me. A lot. I was computer-phobic for several years because I didn't know how everything could go *poof* in the blink of an eye. Elvis-has-left-the-room gone. No warning message. Nothing. Probably because my supervisor thought warning messages were unnecessary and he didn't think about the possibility of the data entry clerk hitting the wrong key.
When I was a Very Young Hippy Chick, my employer was just beginning to think about the possibility of there being computers in the office for the staff - so they got one. I knew enough to create a basic baby spreadsheet to add things up, which made me the office expert. Now this probably won't mean anything to non-UK readers, and won't mean much to half the UK readers, but what I
did know, I had learned on a Sinclair QL - which meant that at a very early stage, I had learned the Three Absolute Rules of the Computer:
1. Back it up.
2. No, honestly, back it up.
3. SERIOUSLY, I'M NOT KIDDING HERE, BACK IT UP!
So when the man from the computer company came to call, I asked him about backing it up. He assured me there was no need: he had, he said, never heard of a hard drive failing. (Even then I knew this to be a brain-hurty moment.) I insisted, and he rolled his eyes and humoured me, taught me how to back it up (onto floppies but that's another story), and every Friday night I ran the backup twice, put one set of floppies in my desk and took the other set home for safety.
I had a panicky phone call one evening: everything was gone. Everything. But I had backup disks, hadn't I?
I did. Left hand top drawer.
So what should Co-worker do with them?
I had no idea. I knew I had been told, and I knew I had written it down, but I had never needed to do it and off-hand I didn't remember where I had filed the notes. I would find them for her in the morning, or she could call Computer Guy and get him to talk her through it.
CW fell about laughing. I had a backup but I didn't know how to restore it? Just how pointless was that?
'Co-worker, which of us has taken the backup that is going to save your bacon tomorrow? Who knows that the How To notes exist because she wrote them? That would be me. And which of us was the idiot who did Control-Alt-Delete *.*
and then read the warning that says 'this will wipe everything, confirm Y/N'
and did it anyway? Oh yes, that would be you.'
She brought me cake the next day.