## It's not my job to backup my files

<center>https://fjwp.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/16135325/TechSupportRep.png</center>

So the actors in this one are me, a developer in my company ($dev) and my boss ($boss). story is about 5 or 6 years old.

We had gotten a few powerful desktops that were no longer used and told the devs they could use them to develop the apps they were working on. So anytime a dev needed to develop/test code, I would create a new VM, install Visual Studio and give them access. Our company was small and we had limited resources, and at some point backing up the dev's work became hard.

Since this was a testing environment, I decided that there is no need to backup these VMs. I spoke to $boss and we came up with a strategy that we wouldn't backup anything related to the dev environment. instead, the devs has to copy their code to their home folder which was being backed up. Once everything was set up, I announced it to everybody and made sure everyone was aware of this plan.

Fast forward a few months later. I get a message from one of the devs that the VM he has been using is inaccessible.

i do the regular troubleshooting (try to rdp, ping...) but nothing. I tried to rdp to the physical host, also nothing. I went to the server room thinking it is most probably some power issue and a reboot would help, but it turns out to be a bit more complicated. The hard drive had sadly passed away.

The conversation goes a little bit like this.

$me: So the server is dead. I will create a new VM for you on another server and you can restore your project from your home folder.

$dev: What ? This can't be true. I don't have a backup of my code.

$me: why ? I have reminded everyone multiple times.

$dev: it's not my job to back up my files. this is your job. I will raise the issue with $boss.

He goes and speaks to the boss about how I was incompetent and didn't back up his files. needless to say, $boss stands on my side as he approved the plan. Also other developers had backed up all their projects, so he was the only one.

Since the project he was working on was important to the company, I was tasked to restore the data from the drive. I tried several tools I have, but nothing worked as the issue was that the head was not getting power.

I ended up taking the disk to a specialist to restore a folder that was about 15 or 20 MB in size and the company paid a huge amount to this specialist just because someone decided not to copy his work because it is not their job.

The funny thing? a few months later, same issue happened with the same guy. only this time, hard drive was not dead and it was a small server issue. but he didn't back up any of his files.

Edit: to answer many comments, a few months after this incident we setup TFS for the devs to use. The reason we didn't have source control was that our dev team was somehow new and growing and we didn't need it before## TLDR Summary:

 So the actors in this one are me, a developer in my company ($dev) and my boss ($boss). I spoke to $boss and we came up with a strategy that we wouldn't backup anything related to the dev environment. Our company was small and we had limited resources, and at some point backing up the dev's work became hard. I went to the server room thinking it is most probably some power issue and a reboot would help, but it turns out to be a bit more complicated. So anytime a dev needed to develop/test code, I would create a new VM, install Visual Studio and give them access. I will create a new VM for you on another server and you can restore your project from your home folder. only this time, hard drive was not dead and it was a small server issue.
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