Learning from Mistakes: The Stomach-Dropping Moment in My Tech Career

We’ve all experienced that heart-stopping moment in our careers when we realize we’ve made a grave mistake, especially in the fast-paced world of technology. Inspired by a recent discussion around Azure MFA, I reflected on my own critical misstep during my early days as an implementation consultant.

Back when I was still getting my footing with SQL, I was tasked with executing a client-requested deletion of specific records. My ISE had a nifty feature that allowed me to test scripts by highlighting the code I intended to run—an incredibly useful tool, or so I thought. In my eagerness, I ran the SELECT statement, but unfortunately, I neglected to ensure that the WHERE clause had been included in my command.

In an instant, millions of records were wiped from our production database, and it was during our busiest season. Panic set in as I considered the implications of this massive blunder. Thankfully, we were fortunate to be using Oracle 11g at that time, along with its recently introduced flashback feature, which allowed us to recover our lost data without too much disruption.

From that incident, we learned a hard lesson about the importance of maintaining a strict discipline for testing in isolated environments before executing any commands in production. Today, I emphasize to newcomers in the tech field the significance of double-checking every line of code and the value of thorough testing. Mistakes may happen, but it’s our response to those errors that defines our growth in the industry.

Have you experienced a similar moment in your tech journey? Share your stories and insights below! Your experiences could provide invaluable lessons for others navigating the challenges of a career in technology.