About 40 to 50 hours into the project I have a show and tell demo on what I had developed so far. At the end of the meeting the Director of Operations leans back and says. "What I envisioned as the never ending, never caught up task of collecting and organizing competitive pricing is now going to be 1 or 2 hours a day for someone."
Developer me was proud to hear that. I heard/understood the real business requirements and developed a system that automates away 90% of the repetitive drudgery of the overall task leaving someone better able to spend time on edge cases and what is changing in the market.
On the other hand I felt slightly guilty that maybe now someone who is already too busy will get this added to their plate because it is just an hour or two a day. And, that someone else who could really use an entry level analysis job, won't get one because I automated it away before they could even get started.
In the end developer me will keep building stuff like this because that is what is valued and helps pay my bills.