i am a screwup
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You are currently reading a thread in /g/ - Technology
You are currently reading a thread in /g/ - Technology
I accidentally deleted the company's VM holding an important database. Latest backup is 2 months old. How screwed am I? How do I even tell my boss about this? I thinking of not even showing up to work tomorrow.
You do have support right? You should be calling them like now
If you think you could be sued or even criminally charged you should talk to a lawyer
>>51270531
great job fucktard
How the fuck do you retards get jobs. You see a thread like this on /g/ like twice a week.
>>51270531
>company doesn't keep backups properly/didn't order a backup strategy to be included in the plans for whatever that VM was
It's 50% their own fault
>>51270531
Important db in a VM? Is this common practice?
>>51270531
>Latest backup is 2 months old.
It's partially their fault as well. Unless it was your job to keep backups.
>>51270711
Yeah who still uses physical servers except for Hypervisor hosts?
>>51270711
It is if you work with docker
>>51270531
Use file recovery tools NOW.
STOP WRITING TO THAT DATABASE.
WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NOT HAVE WORKING DAILY FULLS AND INCREMENTALS?
HAVE YOU EVEN TESTED THAT THE BACKUPS YOU DO HAVE RESTORE TO VM/BARE METAL SUCCESSFULLY?
YOU ARE AN INEPT RETARD AND I HOPE YOU GET YOUR ASS SUED OFF.
>>51270729
My company does
I assume every decent company would have a backup of their database
>>51270737
Are you actually taking this seriously? I hope you used capslock and didn't hold down shift the whole time in panic
>>51270730
Ah, never heard of that. Looks legit
are you retarded, why didnt you tell them when it happened
>>51270594
No support. Only backups to rely on.
>>51270673
They don't have the money to do it, so i'm fine in the legal sense.
>>51270687
>>51270707
Yeah, its amazing what a lost string can do...I'll probably lay off on developent for a few months after i get fired tommorow
>>51270773
>NOT HOLDING DOWN SHIFT EVERY TIME REGARDLESS OF WHATEVER
FUCKING CASUALS
>>51270531
>>51270727
It wasn't even my VM to use in the first place.
I enable automatic backups, but this one was stuck at manual ones.
>>51270737
I cant use recovery tools, the hdd is not a local one. We use external hosting.
>>51270787
Because I wasn't aware of it untill now.
>>51270850
I am aware of this.
The problem is that the access to the VM was granted to 2 people. Me and my boss.
Update flash and they'll be fine
>>51270932
I know this sucks balls, but unfortunately you (and especially your boss) should have had automated, rotating backups in place if it was important.
I don't think there is any way to get out of this, unless your boss is so schmucky that s/he will assume they accidentally did it (or they love your work enough to fight for you).
>>51270531
>2months old backup
>wasn't really important i guess
>>51270951
Wrong person anon
Restore the backup you have. Pretend nothing happened. If your asked why the database is our of date, say it must have crashed and automatically restored the most recent backup. Then suggest more frequent backups to avoid it in the future.
If you're lucky you'll just about avoid looking like an incompetent fuckup.
>>51270711
this was also my question
OP, if your company doesn't back up databases daily, surely your host does, right?
>>51270860
>external hosting
Call them now wtf. Might have the disk image laying around for a few days. Fuck op call them Jesus Christ. You shouldn't be fired for causing this, you should be fired for how you're reacting to it. Tell your boss immediately and get on the phone with your hosting provider.
Act like a fucking professional
>>51270993
Best answer so far desu
>>51270980
>i'm a fucking derp, sorry bro-non
But that's exactly why I run automated backups that rotate on all my production servers at work, because I'm a derp and keeping a safety net makes me at least look smart.
>>51270993
this
you're a fucking idiot if you try anything else and leave a trail of your massive fuck-up
play dumb, retard
>>51270531
From the Pragmatic Programmer
The Cat Ate My Source Code
The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak.
J. B. Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ, 1709
One of the cornerstones of the pragmatic philosophy is the idea of taking responsibility for yourself and your actions in terms of your career advancement, your project, and your day-to-day work. A Pragmatic Programmer takes charge of his or her own career, and isn't afraid to admit ignorance or error. It's not the most pleasant aspect of programming, to be sure, but it will happen—even on the best of projects. Despite thorough testing, good documentation, and solid automation, things go wrong. Deliveries are late. Unforeseen technical problems come up.
These things happen, and we try to deal with them as professionally as we can. This means being honest and direct. We can be proud of our abilities, but we must be honest about our shortcomings—our ignorance as well as our mistakes.
so there will be a company hiring a database technician soon?
i can import and export databases.
op, where do you work?
>>51270951
I'll just quit the job. They will never see me nothing other than an idiot for this. I'll try to fix it before i go.
>>51270993
I doubt this will work desu.
>>51271018
None that i know of.
>>51271031
This is what i plan to do asap.
Take Responsibility
Responsibility is something you actively agree to. You make a commitment to ensure that something is done right, but you don't necessarily have direct control over every aspect of it. In addition to doing your own personal best, you must analyze the situation for risks that are beyond your control. You have the right not to take on a responsibility for an impossible situation, or one in which the risks are too great. You'll have to make the call based on your own ethics and judgment.
When you do accept the responsibility for an outcome, you should expect to be held accountable for it. When you make a mistake (as we all do) or an error in judgment, admit it honestly and try to offer options.
Don't blame someone or something else, or make up an excuse. Don't blame all the problems on a vendor, a programming language, management, or your coworkers. Any and all of these may play a role, but it is up to you to provide solutions, not excuses.
If there was a risk that the vendor wouldn't come through for you, then you should have had a contingency plan. If the disk crashes—taking all of your source code with it—and you don't have a backup, it's your fault. Telling your boss "the cat ate my source code" just won't cut it.
> fuck up badly
> well guess I won't show up to work tomorrow
Holy jesus are you 12
Don't act like a kid when you broke something, try to fix it or inform people who might be able to fix it or at least smoothen it
It's not about your pride, stuff at work should work, do anything you can instead of crying and retreating and even if you don't hold your job you won't look like a complete retard at least, and you are right now
>>51271164
Tip 3
Provide Options, Don't Make Lame Excuses

Before you approach anyone to tell them why something can't be done, is late, or is broken, stop and listen to yourself. Talk to the rubber duck on your monitor, or the cat. Does your excuse sound reasonable, or stupid? How's it going to sound to your boss?
Run through the conversation in your mind. What is the other person likely to say? Will they ask, "Have you tried this..." or "Didn't you consider that?" How will you respond? Before you go and tell them the bad news, is there anything else you can try? Sometimes, you just know what they are going to say, so save them the trouble.
Instead of excuses, provide options. Don't say it can't be done; explain what can be done to salvage the situation. Does code have to be thrown out? Educate them on the value of refactoring (see Refactoring). Do you need to spend time prototyping to determine the best way to proceed (see Prototypes and Post-it Notes)? Do you need to introduce better testing (see Code That's Easy to Test and Ruthless Testing) or automation (see Ubiquitous Automation) to prevent it from happening again? Perhaps you need additional resources. Don't be afraid to ask, or to admit that you need help.
Try to flush out the lame excuses before voicing them aloud. If you must, tell your cat first. After all, if little Tiddles is going to take the blame....
Related sections include:
•
•
•
•
•
Challenges
•
Prototypes and Post-it Notes
Refactoring
Code That's Easy to Test
Ubiquitous Automation
Ruthless Testing
How do you react when someone—such as a bank teller, an auto mechanic, or a clerk—comes to you with a lame excuse? What do you think of them and their company as a result?
OP, even at my old work, losing a single day of data would have been disastrous and would have been a nightmare contacting and apologizing to all the clients.
Learn from this lesson and learn it well.
>>51271184
aka
always have a contingency plan.
never "test" on prod, you freaking idiot.
always do backups.
always run local tests of database queries before using them on prod.
code defensively.
>>51271210
learn to love your ops guy, have them monitor, have them backup when the above is not possible and treat them well.
>>51270531
>no nightly backups
>>51270707
A lot of hypervisor tools are really user-hostile and confusing on purpose so the companies can charge an arm and a leg for support and training. Looking at you, VMware. I've blown out a virtual disk when I thought I was cleaning a snapshot before. It didn't rape the entire VM, but I can see where OP could have made a similar mistake.
>>51271167
I think that there is no alterative than taking responsibility. I am basically the first and only suspect when this is discovered.
>>51271179
You're probably right, but aside restoring backups, i cant do much since this wasnt my VM or database to begin with.
>>51271210
I do have backups. This was not my VM.
>>51271265
Backups that are 2 months old are not backups, for fucks sake.
The reason Ops people seem lazy is fuck is because they are paid to take time out to figure all this shit out, use the Ops person.
>>51271307
The VM with the 2 months old backup was not my VM
>>51271331
If you're working on it, doing changes to it, you need to make sure the above still applies.
>>51271167
Lmao the company deserved that if they only have 2 month old backups fucking retards.
They learn from this that they should have daily/nightly backupz .
>We use external hosting
did you call them to find out if they have a backup? they may be doing nightly backups of their servers and the vm files might be on them.
>>51271265
Honestly surprised this hasn't been detected yet if it's as bad as you say OP.
This screams bad monitoring.
>>51271345
it sounds to me like OP is the one responsible for the backups
Don't tell anyone. Play dumb. Be angry that it's deleted so no one will suspect.
>>51271359
>>51271018
This.
Get on it OP.
Say the system was hit by one of those Bitcoin/Moneypak ransomware viruses and it automatically wiped the VM and backups.
>>51271414
>>51271400
These might work if people higher than you are non-technical.
>>51270531
>2 months
>>51271432
They are 95% of the time. Hell, if claim that all backups were wiped and pull the 2 month old one out of your ass, you could be the hero.
>>51270993
This.
>>51271384
Or it was a test that they told him it was important and should never touch/fuck it up.
>>51271390
If that's the case learn to backup OP if not well son shit happends, i deleted entire accounting database of my company when i started in IT i was 19 years old.
They fired me and tried to fuck me over with soms court shit luckly my lawyer was a good dude.
But they didn't had backups either so v0v shit happends.
>>51271494
Nah it was live data. Thats how i noticed it. And im not the one responsible for the backups.
>>51271561
you need to contact your ops person or your host immediately, they might have backups.
Op here.
After some thinking i decided to face the music tommorow. Support isnt answering, and i cant restore the backup remotely. I'll stay to fix the problem as best as i can, and then quit the job.
I know that i made an idiot out of myself.
>>51271618
Nigga if you're not the one who does the backups this isn't entirely your fault. Mostly, but not all. At t most try to fix it then offer to resign but if your company isn't 100% retarded they'll see that any sane it guy would have been able to fix this from a backup. The engineering files drive at my company is backed up every fucking hour for just this kinda thing because my company is smart enough to know it can be dumb sometimes, and wants to protect itself from moments like those.
LOOOL YOU ARE SOOO STUPID
>>51270531
>2 months old
you're company a shit.
honestly, it's their fault for being retarded and not making backups for frequently.
>>51271618
yeah, desu senpai, they would probably prefer you stay on and clean up this shitstorm than just bail on them. you can be the guy who sailed through the storm, or the bitch who abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble
>>51271867
>>51272091
Its me against my boss.
They will be furious because 'it worked fine before i fucked shit up'.
I used to work for a small company as their IT Admin. They previously used a consultant who showed me the ropes. Their tape backups were fucking horrendous and never tested. They used software made by some dude who fucked off and died someplace. The shitty NT box had tons of porn stored on it. Mostly the bosses which I promptly deleted to make room on the RAID for actual work. Their network cabling was lol WTF. I made a valiant effrot to fix all their shit. Including doing an all nighter to fix their busted RAID one day. Was I appreciated even when I told them what I was doing for them? No chance. Fuck them and fuck all bosses who don't get at least a little involved in their IT infrastructure. They had it coming.
>>51270711
Virtualizing databases, whether in an AIX LPAR, Solaris zone, VMWare instance, etc. is a common practice. Recovery strategy matters loads.
>>51272187
ok keep wallowing in self pity then. bye bye
>>51272104
>>51272187
plenty of good advice has alreadybeen posted in this thread. if you want a hugbox, >>>/reddit/
This is a good opportunity to practice crisis management. Just accept what you did and battle to fix the situation. It will be very educational even if you fail. You can even mention how you managed to rescue your company in future job interviews. Embrace the adrenaline OP.
I'm assuming you don't have wife/children/debt though.
>>51270531
Some people...
>>51270711
Yes unless you're using Oracle in which case their buttfuck retarded licensing requires you to license EVERY HOST IN THE CLUSTER even if you're only running it on 1.
>>51270773
REMAP CAPS LOCK THEY SAID
YOU NEVER USE IT THEY SAID
And then I remapped caps lock only to find that I use it every day
>>51272187
lol I would jack off to the image of their anger. So fucking hot when people are pissed at me. It doesn't matter the gender btw, just the idea of pissing people off. Fuck'em and their stupid lives they built simply by being born before you.
>>51270739
Are you from that past?
>>51274082
Well, that explains the Aussie shitposting problem.
>>51274083
My company uses a 13 year old mssql 2000 db for damn near everything, they want me to update the code to use their new one which I am up to the task of doing because I fear nothing. I'll either fail hard, like everything else, get blamed, OR win. Either way they don't really want me around. Fuck everyone and everything. Fuck bitches everyday!
>>51274143
glad i dont work with you, ya slackjawed piece
>>51274143
Are you CS or IT? Either way run, you'll get no where with where you're at.
>>51274177
What do you mean? Where should I be?
>>51274230
Some place that doesn't simultaneously believe you're capable of magic and treat you like shit.
General rules for this kind of shit:
1. Have automated backups.
2. Test your backup and restore solution before relying on it for anything important.
3. Have support for your backup solution.
4. Think before you delete anything.
>>51274143
>this is what passes for an ass in corea
>>51274249
I have a history of bad relationships, both with girls, friends and people. If you knew me you would treat me the same everyone does. I practically get off on it now, no hope, just running and hiding, and lots crying, screaming and smiling. Can't wait till its over….
>>51274309
shoop or implants
Either way, that's disgusting
>>51274323
>being low test
>>51274309
WHO
>>51274337
I'd take the one on the left all day erry day, maybe the one in the middle, but the one on the right is nasty.
>>51274337
Hey bro what do you think about this one?
>>51274347
ur mom LMAO
>>51274354
>implying you don't need chad looks, six figures and an 8x6 to even come close to satisfying her
>>51274312
No one will respect you if you don't respect yourself.
>>51274411
Who the fuck said anything about satisfying her? Pump and dump, fuck relationships.
>>51274418
yea maybe your right, the problem is I am a looney. :)
>>51271181
10/10 advice. Father figure confirmed.
>>51274473
sorry, that should've been
>implying she'll let you anywhere near her without chad looks
>>51274519
Maybe she won't, but there are others who will, and she'll get turned down by enough chads that she'll start looking elsewhere. Besides, I don't think I'm the fat neckbeard archetype that seems to be the norm on /g/.
>>51270729
>the first day you learn about virtualization and haven't been in the real world
what's it like being that new?
>>51274519
>implying she'll let you anywhere near her without chad looks or with a big dick or alot of money
Ftfy
>>51270773
OP POSTED A FUCKING SKELETON OF COURSE IT'S SERIOUS 100% RED ALERT
just deny knowing anything about it, even if there is irrefutable evidence that you did it.
