The Most Terrifying Moment of My Tech Career: A Cautionary Tale

We’ve all had moments in our careers that made our stomachs drop—especially in the fast-paced world of technology. Today, I want to share a particularly harrowing experience from my time as an implementation consultant, one that taught me invaluable lessons about caution and the importance of testing environments.

While I was still relatively new to SQL, I was tasked with writing a deletion statement to remove records as requested by a client. My workplace had this convenient feature that allowed us to test code by highlighting specific segments, ensuring that only the selected code would execute. However, during one critical moment, I mistakenly executed a select statement without properly applying the necessary conditions. The result? I inadvertently deleted millions of records from our production database in the middle of a busy season.

The gravity of this situation was overwhelming. Fortunately, we were working with Oracle 11g at that time and had recently implemented the flashback functionality. This capability allowed us to recover lost data, but the incident was a stark reminder of how quickly things can go awry in tech.

From that day forward, I made it a point to strictly adhere to using testing environments before making any significant changes in production. This experience not only reshaped my approach to coding but also reinforced the idea that a little caution and preparation can save us from catastrophic missteps.

If you’re in the tech field, I encourage you to share your own experiences. What mistakes have made your heart race, and how did they change the way you work? Learning from one another can be a powerful way to navigate the complexities of our industry.