[didgetmaster]

The most enjoyable programming jobs that I had were ones where I was also a 'user' of the software and was given power to build features that I personally wanted. I think this is common in open source projects that are started by people who couldn't find software that did what they wanted, so they wrote their own.

Businesses are there to make money and pay the bills (including the salary of the programmers) but the needs of the users can get lost sometimes in the shuffle. Managers are so busy trying to meet some goal set in a 'high-level' meeting that they lose focus on what would make customers happy.

My current project is very enjoyable. I built a system that I personally wanted (data management) and worked on features that I thought were important. I work closely with customers and beta sites to figure out which feature should get my attention next. It's not finished until I am personally happy with how it works.