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In the mid 2000s a lot of projects and companies needed perl experience for some reason. And not a whole lot of people knew it in my area.
There was a lot og legacy code around, because perl has always been good at "hack something together" for when anything functional is better than nothing. And I've always been good at that sort of stuff.
I'm no longer freelance as I picked up some other niche skills that resulted in me now being in a corporate structure with over a million employees. But I'm shielded from most corporate crap, it pays really well, and I still get to make dirty hacks in perl.
Also, my career has caused me to realize how much important stuff around the world relies on some idiotic code snippet someone wrote "as a temporary fix".
That sounds like a pretty sweet gig. Legacy companies especially are filled with lots of opportunities for hacky automation that can substationally improve the day to day lives of worker bees. The trick is getting leadership to support that kind of work. It sounds like you've been able to succeed in that regard, so kudos.
If it's stupid and it works, is it really stupid?
It's always fun watching the clash between this reality and compliance/safety/regulatory folks, lol.