Ok, yes, I agree with that clarification (and I missed that you specified in your original comment "uncommitted work", my mistake).

If you git reset --hard and you have a dirty working directory, you can absolutely blow work away. That's one of the main reasons to use git reset --hard, but I agree that it needs to be used with intention.

The easiest way to protect against it is to never use it if you have a dirty working directory, always commit first and then reset --hard after you've committed.