Second, you have to get a sense of the lay of the land. Walk the halls to find out how the place is laid out physically, and what facilities, functions, and people it contains. Third, you have to put together a program of demands. This is not an easy task. Fourth, if there's not an employee organization, start one.
Institutions prefer to deal with other institutions rather than human beings.
Fifth, it's generally useful to process your suggestions or demands through channels. Sixth, it's then a good idea to lay your grievances on whomever is at the top. In either event, you may get results. Yet it seems self-evident that after working incessantly for 10 years at the same job a person's enthusiasm for work becomes stale, his imagination stagnant, and that the only way to counteract this process of diminishing returns would be to take a long breather involving education or rest and possibly a decision to change fields or at least direction. There is only you. . . .