Character Pose UI problem: just lost 2 hours right before a deadline

I spent quite some time in the skeleton editor making an intricate pose in a skeletal mesh. Instead of creating a new pose asset, I saved the skeletal mesh-- obviously not the right way to do it, but it opened the asset in a new window and trashed that pose. Hitting save should NEVER be a destructive operation, even if it doesn’t fit in your expected workflow!!!