We all have grown up reading or listening the husband-wife jokes and there would always be one joke where husband forgets  wife’s birth day and he gets special unwanted treatment in return . Those all jokes were good to hear and brought smile on the thousands of faces. I really enjoyed those jokes until it happened with me today on 24th March.

I have a habit of remembering important days of my life. I do remember the birth date of most of my friends and I don’t need to set reminder for it.  In fact, I wish my friends one day in advance to make sure that I am the first one to wish them. I never thought that I would ever forget to wish my wife on her birth day. But it did  happen. I forgot to wish my wife on 24th of March. I am in CA, USA for business work so I am 12:30 hours behind from India. So when I called her at 11:20 am PST on 24th morning it was 11:50 PM IST in India. We started conversion as usual. However I could feel the change in voice. After having routine discussion for 2-3 minutes, she simply told that today was her birth day and I got shocked. I asked first question to myself, how can I forget this ? I became speechless. I tried to convince my self that I am in USA so I might have forgotten or I would have surely remember before PST day end. But my mind was not convinced. 12:30 hours should not have made difference for me as I wish in advance to my friends so I would have wished her on 23rd night. I did not have much to say her except the one and only one best word in any relation “Sorry”. I wished her Happy Birth Day.  She accepted  it gracefully. <3

I was thinking that I would have celebrated it in grand way had I been in India. But, at very next moment I started doubting that I could have forgotten it, even if I were in India. You can’t blame a place to hide your mistake.

I looked around in office. Shared my sorrow with my friends here. All told that “forgetting wife’s birth day is an unforgivable crime. It reminded me of country Samoa where it is indeed a legal crime to forget wife’s birth day.

My software engineer’s brain came to rescue. It accepted the situation as a high priority production bug and started looking for a quick fix in production. I tried to send some gifts through online but all online cake shops were not taking order at night which can be delivered in next day morning. The true software engineers never quit and they keep finding solution until the bug is fixed.  I looked around in office and I found following beautiful arrangement for someone’s birth day in office. (I am at client place and I don’t know all people here except my project colleagues).

 

I WhatsUpped these beautiful birthday balloons  to my wife. She did like it and acknowledged it with love next day morning her time . The quick fix did work as usual.  🙂

Every production fixes require RCA and as I am doing an RCA (Root Cause Analysis) of issue at 2:00 am , I found the reasons if not excuses behind my failure to wish.  It had been 8 plus weeks that I have been working for a project without a full day break. Sometimes it requires to work 18-20 hours a day.  Some project priorities let you forget some personal priorities. I think this is the life that almost every software engineer have lived at least once in their lifetime. It is all about balancing out the equation  of  new feature enhancements and  number of regression bugs in on going project. Both don’t go together. One has to win, other has to wait to win.

My wife is well aware of the fact that she is married to a software engineer and she has accepted it as a part of life. I am thankful to her for all her support. I wish I could say her that the most import project for me is my family. I may not be able to spend much time on this project for sometime, however it is always of top priority. And a software engineer knows what it takes for a project to Go Live and he does it so often without a fail.