Where is the pride in this job?

I have been doing this a while now, security, infrastructure, cloud, almost the whole IT-world.
Some days I feel sharp and useful. Other days... I am just tired.

But the thing that keeps coming back to me lately is this:

Am I wrong for still caring more about the customer than the profit?

I know how business works. I know what margins are. I know what “utilization” means in a slide deck.
But I also know the feeling of a customer breathing easier because something finally makes sense.
Because we fixed something. Secured something. Made their job suck a little less.

That is what I signed up for. To be the pink elefant.

And yet, somewhere along the way, it feels like we stopped talking about pride in the work.
Not pride in the logo, or the teams revenue growth, but the quiet kind, the pride you feel when you know you made a difference and did not cut corners.

I am not some fresh-out-of-school idealist. I have used both ductape and glue to fix major infra solutions, late in the game.
I have taken shortcuts when I had to.
But I have also watched a customer go from overwhelmed to in control because someone (me) took the time to explain, to care, to actually solve the damn problem instead of just hitting SLAs.

Is that old-fashioned now?
Am I getting too sentimental for this line of work?

I do not know.
But I do know this: when I stop caring about the customer, I will know it is time to leave.

Until then, I will keep showing up.
Keep asking the hard and stupid questions.
Keep doing the work I can be proud ofm, even if no one else tracks that in a KPI.

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I wrote this mostly for myself. But if you are out there feeling the same way, maybe a little worn down but still giving a damn, you're not alone.