I'll dole out the advice given me by a bunch of friends here. Just move. Life's too short to do crap you aren't interested in.
Took me two years to take their advice. Having much more fun now running my little two man IT department.
If you think the current place still has hope of not being run by douchbags and new tech would *really* be a bottom line benefit, just do it. Dare them to argue with success.
We were down to that at the last place. Three or four people just getting things done and ignoring the douchebags who handed the smallest division of the company a real world 100% increase in business and thought they could upgrade systems fast enough on their time table that included up to a 9 business day wait to make even a DNS change.
We installed stuff, configured it, and make it fully Production quality in a week and they lost their minds and had meetings about how it couldn't be done that way. We listened to them whine on headsets while we were implementing the NEXT major upgrade. LOL. They either had no clue how to grow that fast and had never done it, or they were deliberately trying to sabotage the division. Probably both.
My favorite was when the so-called data center expert just slapped things in a cabinet drawing that made no sense for power or massive wiring runs. I went up on a Wednesday night and re-racked the entire cabinet correctly, updated his documentation it took him two months to come up with, and shot photos and said, "this is how a rack is supposed to look". Another whine-fest ensued but no one argued that it was RIGHT.
So. Do the right thing and run the risk of whiners being more politically powerful than success. Or get out and go do what you like. In between isn't worth it.
Note: The above only applies if new technology is bottom-line so much better that it can't be avoided. It has to make or save the business money and money has to go where mouth is.
( I'm sure you know this but adding for those reading along who've always "gone along to get along" and settled for mediocrity as long as it keeps the paycheck flowing. )
If it's just because you want something new on a resume', that's different. Still mainframes and COBOL out there doing a lot of real work with no solid business plan or reason to replace them. Yet.
I'm currently working on a report that'll either show (or not show) that (think) I can save $66K first year, $132K the second year with some effort to replace some expensive services with in-house stuff. It has to wait until the rest of the cleanup phase is completed though, which looks like November/December.
Fun stuff. Get out man. Or just make the business case and take the beach, even if you have to shoot back at the friendlies who are firing on your advance. Either way, works.
Have fun!
