We probably cannot help much, but we can offer opinions.

Check into "test-driven development".  From a certain point of view, testing
is the heart and soul of effective programming.

Testing gives you an appreciation for how careful a programmer must be, and
how little they are in practice.  (I will suggest that spelling the word "I"
in lower case bespeaks a carelessness that will not make for effective test
disciplines.)

Breadth of experience makes you a better programmer.  Work on JEE projects on
your own while you're waiting for your employer to recognize your talents.
Stay active in programmer communities, and continue to train yourself in
ongoing technologies.  Work on your people skills - get to know the folks at
work who do the work (i.e., don't spend all their time playing politics).

Keep your attention on opportunities.  Over time you might find excuses to
offer to write or fix code snippets at work until people get used to the idea
that you know what you're doing.  More responsible assignments should ensue.

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:46:46 -0000, "satishchandra22@gmail.com"
<satishchandra22@gmail.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

I will answer with a story about a young Asian woman named Lorelei who
worked at BC Hydro as a "keypunch girl" as we called them back in the
early 70s.

Back then we used punch cards to develop FORTRAN programs.  Lorelei
would always hand you two decks of cards, a big one, typed precisely
as you had requested and a smaller deck of corrections, as she thought
you meant to ask.

She had taken it on herself to learn FORTRAN.  She was nearly always
right.  We programmers loved her.  Unfortunately for us, her
initiative lead to her being promoted to a programmer and general
productivity fell.