... Brian Hegarty, who after just three months quit what seemed like a promising position with a Philadelphia-area Internet company that designs e-commerce sites for large corporate clients.

Last May, Mr. Hegarty, 34, was hired as the organization's senior copy chief, responsible for writing a series of copy and grammatical style guides that employees were supposed to follow when setting up and maintaining client Web sites.

But after several weeks on the job, he began to realize that no one was interested in consulting the manuals. "My jaw dropped when a co-worker approached me and said no one was ever going to read the guidelines," Mr. Hegarty recalled. "This had been the big selling point in taking the job. It was disheartening."

There were other signs that taking the position was a mistake. At company meetings, he was often introduced by the wrong job title, and other employees did not seem to have any idea what his responsibilities were.