in reply to Bad conscience
I would prefer to say the same thing this way: “shine and do great, professional work for the company of souls that’s currently paying you,” and ... “do not take so self-restricting a view of exactly what it is that they are paying you for!”
Are they really paying you [just ...] for your ability to jockey [just ...] Perl source-code?
Really? Do you really think so?
Think outside the little career-box that you seem to have put yourself in. A computer programming language, therefore any-and-every body of source-code written in that language, is merely: “a for-the-moment necessary means to a business end.” The source-code is a specific, concrete, implementation of a business(-specific) process. It is both a product of present-day technologies and utterly governed by it. It is business-important today only because today it is necessary. If the technology were to change completely, tomorrow, then all of that source-code would be replaced by week’s end. Until and unless that [never ...] happens, the source-code is valuable only because all of us are still stuck with it.
You are not that process; nor are you a machine. You’re not even the (only ...) keeper of the source-code. Your value to the company is located between your ears, not between your fingernails. You know the process. In fact, you know the process so intimately that you are able to make your living based in part upon your ability to cause an unthinking digital machine to implement a significant part of that process, within the severe technological constrants (i.e. “Perl, etc.”) of the present day. Tomorrow is another day.
Hence ... go talk to your boss, immediately. Believe it or not, you are both on the same team.