@jeff Moden, (and I don't really care if my name is capitalized, but I am sorry if I offended you)

We are saying pretty much the same thing. The difference is that you are focussing on the pain as the thing to be fix, and for me, the task and the pain are seperate. The task is that you have to fix some data, or restore a data. This is my analogy to the catching the ball. The pain is that you have to be careful to make sure you don't delete the entire table (oops, did I forget to back up before I fixed that data?), or you have to spend 100 hours fighting for what is right in a meeting instead of just letting poor code/designs reign. The work/meetings/etc are in many ways worse than the pain of getting flattened by a linebacker, (which is over in a microsecond and a few good nights of sleep).

But that time when you didn't highlight the entire delete statement and deleted all of the order data for the day and didn't even back up first? (or dropped a db, most dba's have some memory of that sort of a thing) Yeah, you certainly don't want to forget that and just do the same thing.

That is what I am saying is like a new year's resolution. Didn't lose weight last year? You can either forget the pain you are going to have exercising and just do it daily, or give up because you know it is going to be difficult. Database is filled with junk? Bah, then who cares if we end up with more junk in the next change?