Based on the careers you mentioned, I think you've got the Promoted After Midnight bug, and there isn't anything you can do about it - it's a flaw in the game code, not a glitch in your particular sim.
The deal seems to be this: At midnight, the game sets up your sim's work schedule for the new day. If your sim gets promoted after midnight, the hours you're supposed to work change - but it doesn't alter that schedule that was set up earlier. So you end up with a state where you are simultaneously supposed to be at work and not supposed to be at work. I've had this happen in both branches of the Criminal career (nearly every promotion), plus Medical (one level has an overnight shift) and the non-Late Night schedule for the Rock branch in Music (one level ends in the early AM - in Bridgeport the schedule is different.) So your work is screwed up until midnight passes again - the game may send a carpool on a day you thought you had off, and you'll be penalized for not working but make no career progress if you go in, the carpool may come at the wrong time, you may notice your career bar going down even though you're not supposed to be at work and no carpool came, and so forth. The next midnight, everything will start working properly again, unless you somehow managed to get promoted despite all the obstacles...
There's no fix - this has been in the game since the beginning. I've basically always handled it by going in if my career bar started going down, whether the carpool had come or not, because no progress is better than going backwards. One thing I noticed is that if you go to work on the schedule shown on your career tab and the bar doesn't move, it may actually kick in at midnight. Also, if there are work tones for socializing or skilling, those will work normally even if your career bar isn't filling. It may also help to take the Vacationer lifetime reward - I believe, unlike what it says in the Guide, it allows you to skip work without penalty occasionally - but that, or taking unpaid days off right after getting promoted, might slow your career progress more than you like.
