I wasn't clear enough - by investing time and energy into simplifying our mundane services into a product, we're able to expand into more interesting projects - and we have the profitability to do charity work and blue sky work.
I'm certain that there are employees that like rote work, but for me, I can't stand it and project that onto others.
I'm making the attempt at being brutally honest. I share this as honesty as well as I can with my employees - as they understand the career and employment pitfalls of being the "PostgreSQL on ARM32 FreeBSD 9.1 dude" as opposed to the "I can figure out [anything]SQL on [anthing] dude"
I supposes I could sugar coat things - but given that I'm hiring really smart people they'll figure it out and won't trust me one bit.
For the employee it's not. For the employer, it obviously is. If you can't get hired somewhere else, you're not going to bail.
As someone dealing with basically this situation, it sucks, but if I was also getting handed one-off "solve this puzzle and we're going to use the code you make every day" problems and raises early and often, it wouldn't suck nearly this much.
I'm certain that there are employees that like rote work, but for me, I can't stand it and project that onto others.