This is my experience too, although probably not checked out enough to take a voluntary severance. Most people just want to chill and work at a steady pace. That kind of work ethic is fine for most industries, but not tech companies unfortunately.
I feel like there is also the "Nerd Factor" to consider which is this unrelenting passion to type away at a screen all day, whether that is yesterday's code or tomorrow's prompt. Few non-technical people have the attention span to suffer such monotony. (Even most devs don't have that to varying extents)
I'm trying to write a novel, have been for a while now; one thing I hear from professional writers is that one should only do this if you are prepared to re-read whole thing six times before you even send it to the editor, and when you do send it to the editor, you and they will likely spend several months repeatedly re-reading the whole thing as you respond to a long list of changes they give you.
It's only monotone from someone looking, not from someone doing. If you look at digital painting tutorial, you'll see a lot of timelapse, because it's a very slow process where you spend the majority of time correcting stuff. But if you're the one doing it, each individual brush stroke is the result of a conscious decision.
Working on a passion project or working through the hairy details of a complex algorithm or whatever can be fun. But that's not really what the job is like most of the time.
All the boring parts I've encountered have soon been automated out of my workflow. There's the waiting part of some process, but that's why I have HN for.
Technology Connections did a video (because of course he did) on how gas furnaces work. The short of it is that the flame is contained inside of metal tubes and never mixes with indoor air. No exhaust gases can leak into the breathable air.
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