Beverley East, Contributor

You have heard the expression, I am sure, 'Out of the frying pan into the fire'.

Many of you may have experienced this situation - you have taken on a job and when you are in it, nothing relates to what the job had advertised.

A friend of mine thought she had landed herself a great middle-level position in sales and marketing, but it turned out that she had to sell merchandise door-to-door in a shabby part of town that was not so safe. She was grossly disappointed.

Sometimes, the gap is so wide between the advertised offerings and the actual tasks you are required to do once you take on the job. Sometimes, the only reasonable action is to quit while you're ahead. The longer you stay, the worse it will get. However, quite often, those situations cannot be turned around.

Not-so-pleasant stuff

In most cases, the difference in expectations is more subtle and doesn't become apparent until you have been working in the job for a while before the not-so-pleasant stuff starts to appear.

Another reader wrote me saying she, too, had a job as a promotions coordinator for a supermarket chain. The position was supposed to require writing press releases, planning promotions, working with local media, in addition to working closely with a graphic designer to produce effective advertisements.

Instead, she found herself doing mostly administrative work, stocking shelves and, in one instance, cleaning up the floor on an aisle where a customer had dropped a bottle and walked away.

At first, she didn't mind, thinking it showed that she was a team player. After three weeks, however, her job proved to be nothing more than programming gift cards, printing and distributing supplies to the stores.

There was another discrepancy with her salary. She tried to work it out and scheduled a meeting with her supervisor.

She brought the original job description along to the meeting. Instead of changing her tasks, her boss changed the job description without any of the desirable characteristics that led her to take the job in the first place. She quickly found a new job, one that has turned out to be as advertised. So there is hope.

Difficult choices

When you find yourself in a job that differs widely from what you expected, you are faced with some difficult choices.

How quickly you need to make them depends in part on the severity of the issues. If safety and ethics are being violated with no chance of correction, I suggest you leave and do not compromise yourself.

If there is a serious conflict with your boss with no fix in sight, or you don't think the boss or company can be trusted in general, move on. Sometimes, personalities just cannot blend.

If your pay cheque is off, move on. If the salary and benefits aren't what they promised and management does not immediately rectify the situation when you call attention to it, quit immediately.

No respectable financially stable employer would do this. And this is just the beginning of what you can expect of them. As Mayo Angelo says, "When people show you who they are, you better believe them."

If you have another open job offer still on the table - perhaps one that you might have chosen had you known the truth about this one - move on. Give yourself some time, use the wait and watch approach, but don't wait and watch too long.

When company priorities do not allow you to focus on your role or training or orientation, move on. When the organisation is undergoing big changes, move on. When the timing is wrong, move on.

If you are confident that the people who hired you acted in good faith, work with them to try to resolve the mismatch or issues, but remember, diplomacy is the key.

Ask questions

Ask questions to learn more about why the gap exists and what can be done to make you happy. Talk privately to other colleagues inside and outside of the company to validate your thoughts. Be careful not to add to the problem with gossip, and be careful who you choose to be your confidant within a new company.

The patient approach can help protect your résumé as well as your bank account and reputation. You also don't want to seem like you are a constant job-hopper.

Trying to find a new job with several career moves raises questions at interviews that can often cripple your career. If you can't afford another career change try to wait it out and look while employed.

I welcome your emails at writefully_Yours@hotmail.com.