[Philip-J-Fry]

Sometimes I feel like shit working on mundane business problems.

What always perks me up is just trying to find something that someone wants and that I can be invested in. There's things you make for the sake of the business, but there's also things you make for the sake of other people to improve their work life. If I know the person who wants a thing, then I feel invested because I can get feedback and I can see how happy they are with it. Whereas the usual things I work on are so disconnected from me that I feel no satisfaction, like no one is congratulating me on adding a new API endpoint, it's business as usual and I don't even know the names of the people using it.

I just ask managers other non-dev roles about quality of life things they want, or their far away wishes of how they want things to be.

Sometimes it makes me want to start contracting for small businesses. I feel like I'd get satisfaction from solving their problems and seeing how happy they are.