Even though I have not done as much time - I feel the same way. I work as an art director for an in-house department at a fundraising agency with constant burnout - and little to no respect for design. Somedays I want to fight the uphill battle to prove our worth - other days not so much. The way I deal with it is finding others like me. Being a part of AIGA has helped me realize that their are like -minded people out there that care. Also working to make sure that I at least do something creative and/or further my knowledge every day.

Being still in the formative years of my design career, I may be a bit more of a Pollyanna about these things-- nevertheless I identified with your post. I work in financial services helping executives make easier to read presentations. It is a drag a lot of the time. Working principally with PowerPoint, having non-designers as the editors...but I find at least a small amount of personal pride in creating clean designs out of the dense mass of data content they need to share and finishing my work within very tight limits (such as financial executives needing to be able to edit the work after I've gone home). It's not sexy, but, as Tina Fey said in her book, "Go where you are needed" or something like that. If anything, being able to practice the more rock star stuff at home brings some balance as well.

That's a lot of time to do something you don't enjoy. I'm only a few years into my profession and I've already left two jobs that didn't make me happy. The first job had some good work at times, but the clients (in-house) had no sense of what quality design was even when it was staring them in the face. What did slip through the cracks (good work) won lots of design awards and gave me a feeling of accomplishment. The other stuff just sat in a folder somewhere on my computer. My other job was a sweat shop for designers. Cookie cutter designs with no concept. They even reprimanded individuals for talking to other designers when not on an official break. At least they let us go to the bathroom. That is where I usually cleared my head... just sit in a stall and dream about my next job. This may not be an option for some people, but I decided to go to graduate school and energize myself and develop a better portfolio. I wasn't going to get a descent portfolio from the jobs I had. So far it has worked and I love design again.