I would liken an employee’s feeling about a job to the product life cycle. It is phasic, moving from introduction, through growth, maturity, and ultimately decline. In much the same way, there is excitement and positive feelings during the introduction and growth phases of a given job. Eventually maturity is reached at a given position, and the height of excitement has been reached. Decline starts to set in as the positive feelings around a job begin to diminish. All of these phases have variable lengths. The thing that separates great companies from average companies is their ability to maintain excitement and challenge and positivity throughout the maturity phase on the employee life cycle. As soon as decline begins to set in, there is little to nothing that can be done to reverse it (for a product or an employee), so avoiding it is key.