Talking to the end-users has been, for me, the most enjoyable and productive part of developing software. Conversely, it frustrates me to no end that it's basic

Talking to the end-users has been, for me, the most enjoyable and productive part of developing software. Conversely, it frustrates me to no end that it's basically impossible to communicate my issues as an end-user to the only people that can actually fix it... the developers. A random example of the former scenario: I was once having home-made muffins for morning tea, baked by the lovely old ladies working in the support centre. I had developed a GUI support console for them. While chatting away, I noticed (and they complained) that looking up customer contact details was time consuming. Most developers stick within their "vertical stovepipes" and would never dream of pulling in data from unrelated systems managed by other teams. Getting contact data from an LDAP directory is "just a query" however and takes minutes to whip up. I added this feature by lunch time, and walked back to the support centre and demoed this. This cut wasted time for half a dozen people in half. A trivial bit of code that eliminated mindnumbing labour, allowing these people to help other people faster and better. As a converse example: I can take apart a commercial product and diagnose the key flaws in mere hours. I'll tell you every fundamental flaw you've made, and the list the trivial fixes that would make your customers jump for joy. Generally speaking, I'm not permitted to do so. Just like how most of my customers weren't permitted to speak to me, and a few lucky ones only got the chance because they happened to be within walking distance and were generous with their muffins.