Comrades, I am about to sound like a whiny bitch, but please indulge me. I am suffering from extreme alienation.

Basically I am in my dream job. It's easy, secure(government), makes good money, tons of vacation, and is low stress enough that I can listen to podcasts all day, but not boring enough that I could read a book all day and not get fired. I'm also in a union which at the moment is full of old timers that aren't radical in the least but at least it's something and possibly something I could take on as a future goal .

The problem is I'm in a total dead end job. I started as a developer(sql developer) and it's turned into more business analyst type work. Since I work in a large organization most our technology is outdated so that combined with the more business analyst type work means my tech skills are stale. I fear if I want to change jobs at all in the next 40 years I will have to basically start over and take a pretty massive pay/benefits cut. Not only that but the group I work with is a disaster and I see very little likelihood of possible improvement or interesting projects down the road. The last few projects we started went nowhere because they were such shitshows. I have tried pushing some modernization efforts on my manager to at least give me something interesting to do, but they weren't interested. My job is totally mind numbing and alienating. I feel like I am just maintaining old shit now one cares about and really should die but it would take too much effort to change. Not only that but because I got promotions I don't have much room to move up without going into management. I feel stuck because on one had this job has what I described above as what I have always wanted, but it is totally killing my soul and the longer I stay here I fear the harder it's going to be leave. The problem is I worry about getting a new job that is also soul destroying but doesn't offer me the time(9-5 and lots of vacation) to pursue my true passions.

So what do you think comrades? Stay in my dead end, but secure, job and let that kill my soul while I use my free time to pursue my interests or take a risk for something that isn't totally soul sucking? For those of you that made it through my whining I thank you. This is the ultimate first world problem but it is literally killing my soul and I need to vent.