Junior developer named Reggie accidentally erased about 1,500 employees' private insurance records by zeroing out a database field without understanding the field's specific criteria.
Reggie's boss backed him up and excused him from cleaning up the mess, considering it a learning experience.
Second story involves a colleague named Sam who mistakenly deleted all records except test ones from a large database using incorrect syntax, but was able to recover lost records from backups.
Both stories serve as cautionary tales about the importance of understanding systems and processes before making changes to critical data.