Had the same thing happen with way lube on an older mill. Guy told me the cheap stuff was fine and the auto lube would handle it. Two months later the ways were gummed up and the axis was sticking. What finally worked for me was keeping a log of what coolant and mix ratio I ran and how the finish looked, so when someone tells me a shortcut is fine I can point at the numbers instead of arguing. Also started checking the sump every couple weeks with a refractometer and skimming the tramp oil off, which sounds like a pain but it's way less time than that 6 hour cleanup you just did. Ray saying it never happened to him just means he never checked.

Did you ever try to explain Git to someone who doesn't code and watch their eyes glaze over? I had that happen with my dad when I was trying to show him my project setup, and he asked why I couldn't just email the files to myself like normal people. It got me thinking about how weird our tools look from the outside, like the whole idea of saving snapshots of work instead of just saving the work is a hard thing to wrap your head around. Anyway, that conversation stuck with me because it made me realize how much of this stuff feels obvious once it clicks and how impossible it seems before that. Three hours on YouTube is honestly a steal compared to losing six weeks of a game you were building. Sorry about the drive dying, that part stings.