I'm not sure why I'm posting this... maybe to get feedback, similar feelings... maybe even support(?) from someone.
I'm a professional developer. Started off as a PC tech support guy for a small company in a small town. If it was in a metal case, I could fix it. I moved to phone support for a very large (fortune 100, international) company with help "networking" from a friend. I went from phone support to field support and eventually into web development (coldFusion) and later into eLearning development (Flash/C/C++/C#). (I loved programming as a hobby...it seemed to fit.) I've grown to realize over the past few weeks that either the "Peter Principle" is starting to kick in, or I desperately need to go back to support.
We started using Scrum project management at work. We previously had no real project management. It was all, "I think it will take X days" type project management. In other words... zero, zilch, nada. I worked well in this environment. I turned out a few huge multinational applications to support our coursework, saved the company millions, blah blah... I began working with Scrum I've realized that I hate knowing what I'm going to be doing two weeks from now or even 2 days from now. It's so tedious and numbing. Sure, the boss loves it. He can start giving better predictions on when things are to be finished. This makes the corporate big-wigs happy... but it's eating my soul away....well, maybe not. But it feels like it.
I love coming to work NOT knowing what I'm going to be doing that day. If I got pulled into a meeting, was asked to code up a quick method to save interaction data, or just did jack squat that day... I was happy doing it! It was a thrill every day. Uncertainty (not instability) thrills me. It makes my gears wind up and I get so much done. I'm almost certain it's not an issue of lost control. While I had control over my own timeline before, it still wore on me. I couldn't wait for the project to be finished, but there were days I didn't even want to look at it. I have never been able to sit down and complete an entire project on my own, because once I plan it out... I lose interest. Solving the problem is my thrill. Once it's solved, I'm done with it and I want to move on to the next challenge.
As I said... I'm mainly just venting, looking for someone else that might feel this way. I'd hate to have to go job hunting again to float my troubleshooting boat, but I'd like to hear if someone else realized the same and took some positive action to resolve it. Take it as you will.