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RetrieveAttributeResponse NullPointerException

In my CRM custom plugin, when I ran an exact piece of code to retrieve optionset values in different functions, one of which encountered the following error:

Exception thrown: 'System.NullReferenceException' in program.exe

I have no idea why this is happening, as I do not have any other declarations of objects in between them,

Person Class

class PersonHandler
{
    Helper helper = new Helper();
    public void ProcessCase(DataRow row)
    {
        if (!(AreAllColumnsEmpty(row)))
        {
            if (condition)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(personEntity);       //Person
                Console.WriteLine(person.gender);      //gender_fieldname
                Console.WriteLine(row[Excel.gender]);  //M
                var exists = helper.GetOptionSetValue(personEntity, person.gender, excelValue); //NullReferenceException
            }
            else
            {
                CreateNew(row);
            }
        }
    }
        
    public void CreateNew(DataRow row)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(personEntity);       //Person
        Console.WriteLine(person.gender);      //gender_fieldname
        Console.WriteLine(row[Excel.gender]);  //M
        var exists = helper.GetOptionSetValue(personEntity, person.gender, excelValue);  //no errors!
    }
}

Helper Class

public class Helper
{
    private OrganizationServiceProxy _proxy;
    private IOrganizationService _org;

    public int GetOptionSetValue(string entityName, string attributeName, string optionLabel)
    {
        RetrieveAttributeRequest retrieveAttributeRequest = new
        RetrieveAttributeRequest
        {
            EntityLogicalName = entityName,
            LogicalName = attributeName,
            RetrieveAsIfPublished = true
        };
        RetrieveAttributeResponse retrieveAttributeResponse = (RetrieveAttributeResponse)_org.Execute(retrieveAttributeRequest); //error-ed out at this statement
        ...
        return 0;
    }
}

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