Joan only dared to take subtle sigh of relief when she reached home. She threw her bag on the coffee table and spread out on the Sofa.

After the whole day of work, she was mentally and physically exhausted. She had never encountered any issues in the past production deployments. However, today was not a good day for her team , especially for her. Their team was supposed to complete all the activities within few hours but ended up spending more than 20 hours in the office.

Apart from small breaks to the washroom, she had glued to her laptop and even, did not manage to eat meals. Luckily, team identified the issue in the newly deployed code and managed to roll back related changes.

But, this crisis was far from over. Every one was surprised when they realised that issue was introduced by her code.

Though no one blamed her, she felt apologetic for this time. She was very experienced and best developer on this project team. She had never imagined that she would see bug raised on her piece of code.

Tina, her best friend and colleague tried to calm her down.

"Joan, you must understand that your code was working fine in all the lower environments. No one found an issue while testing it on these environments. We can tell clients that this is an environment issue. You should not blame yourself."

"Tina, how is it not my fault when I have found a code issue while debugging. Team was able to reproduce this issue in the lower environments. That means, testing team failed to catch this defect in early testing cycles but I was the one who did not develop it per requirement. I can't push all the blame on to testing team. "

"Joan, this is still your first time. They won't be hard on you…." Tina did not manage to finish her words before she was interrupted by Joan .

"But, I have caused a huge trouble on the go live day. So many people were looking forward for this release. I have messed up this time. Every one was saying that I will definitely be promoted considering my hard work for past few years. Now, Who will recommend my name ? "

"Furthermore, if I had been working at offshore then it would have been better. It's been less than two months since I have arrived at onshore. I did not had any time to greet client leadership team. They will ask me to meet them there in person. Now, I have to face clients and explain."

"I had planned to go on movie date with Sean over the weekend but looks like I have to cancel my plan. Ever since I came to city B, luck is not on my side."

Back to present, Joan heard the doorbell. She

had no intention of getting up but then , She remembered that she had ordered a takeout.

Her room mate was sound asleep.

Joan dragged her exhausted body to the front door and peeped in from the peephole. As expected, she had a food delivery from the restaurant. She opened the door and accepted the delivery.

The piping hot food awakened her hunger. She took food to kitchen and put it on the dining table .She did not bathe so she was sticking .Though, She was hungry . She thought of showering first before eating food.

Upon her return from shower, She found Nicole is up and taking out food from the takeaway. This was interesting, this girl did not bother to call her when she did not return home but she was shamelessly eating someone else's food without asking.

"I heard that it was Joan's code that caused production issue this time.That bitch was acting so arrogant and proud in the office.

Based on stellar performance, She came to On-site in just few years. I thought she might be promoted to Lead position and will give me tough fight. I was worried for nothing . No one will recommend her name . So satisfying."

Joan overheard Nicole talking with someone on the phone. She was already upset about that issue. Her room mate was bad mouthing behind her back. Nicole did not text her even though last night, she did not came back home.They were not close but they did not had any bad blood between them. Did she not worry about her at all?

"Nicole, Did you call for takeout?"

Joan did not want to treat someone nicely when that person was not good to her. Nicole had not noticed Joan until latter stopped by dining table.

" argh , I did not order but I could not resist temptation when I smell the nice food. On the top of that, it is from favourite restaurant." Nicole could not gossip anymore, quickly hung up.

"Since you did not order, should not you have asked me if you could eat?"

"What's there to ask? We both are room mates.I saw that this is more than enough for one person. That's why, I dig in."

"So, what if we are room mates? Your cubicle is opposite to mine. Yesterday, you saw how much busy I was in the office. You knew that I did not go for any meals or snacks.You still did not bother to bring me water from breakout room much less food. Last night, I did not return home. Should not you have shown some concern? If you had done this in the past, I would not have minded but now I object to you eating free food. Since , you have eaten more than half of what I had ordered, Please pay me for this food. I am not interested in eating leftovers."

"Joan, you are too much. Who would do such thing ? Fine, I am not a free loader. I will pay you back." Nicole took out her phone, with few clicks, She sent money to Joan's account and showed her success message.

"Thank you. Enjoy your food." Joan had already left the kitchen and was placing another order on the online food application.

Joan was very hungry. Her new order would take at least 15-20 minutes to deliver at her place. Joan found some snacks and started munching on it while watching TV.

On the surface, she was watching TV but at the same time, countless thoughts came into her mind. She had put the code fix for the production issue in the lower environment and was confident about getting that fix deployed in the production as part of emergency deployment tonight. However, She did not know how to face clients. Should she magnanimously admit her mistakes or push the blame on to Testers? Her company is in the process to seal the another deal with client. If she accepted her fault, would not that negatively impact her company? If she blame it on testers, she would not feel good.

Joan was in dilemma.

Soon, her Takeout was delivered. Joan finished her food in no time. When she came out of Kitchen, Joan saw Nicole leaving for the office.

"Before you reach office, you should prepare your excuse for missing that scenario in testing. I forgot to tell you that production issue is not an environment issue but a code issue. This is not an edge case so I will look forward to your explanation." Since she did not have good time, she would not allow others to have good time too. When Joan saw Nicole's darkened worried face, Her mood improved.

It is known fact that developers do not get along with testers. Well, Nicole came from different company and both their companies were vendors for Clients.

Joan had decided to take responsibility for her mistake but at the same time, she would also drag testing team. That way, she would eliminate one rival company from clinching the new deal. Just now, she had received an email from her Company's Senior Manager. Though, he scolded her badly in his email. Though, they are furious that she made such a grave mistake. They understand that she did not do it on purpose. She should lift up her spirits and should be more careful. He also suggested that she should not be taking entire blame.