Comment by monster_truck

One of the lessons I learned from my Network Administration teacher was that if you're ultimately responsible for it and they say no backups?

You tack on the hours required to do it yourself (this includes the time you must spend actually restoring from the backups to verify integrity, anything less can not be trusted). You keep one copy in your safe, and another copy in a safety deposit box at the bank. Nobody ever has to know. It is inevitable that you will save your own ass, and theirs too.

Shit happens.