I don't work with COBOL but.I had my fair share of old legacy codebases. I sometimes think about how this crappy codebase first started out. Somebody somewhere had to write the first line of code. Was it exciting for them? Was it a sunny day? What did their office look like?
Then I look at the codebase again and all this sentimentalism vanishes.
Working on incredibly boring retail banking systems which are a maintenance nightmare. If you want to work in a bank you'd get paid more working on front office software at an investment bank.