My kitchen worker is working like crazy (he's a runner) but he's not making any progress. He's an apprentice so I should be seeing some movement in the progress bar. I did not time travel but I have had the game paused for a really long time. Would that affect the progress?

I don't think pausing the game would detract from getting progress from his career unless you keep it paused while he's working on it so he can't finish. Also, if you open up another family or exit the game while he's working, he'll stop and start doing something else.

You should try letting it run unpaused overnight and coming back to see if it changed, sometimes the bar just moves slowly and doesn't seem like it's moving at all.

Has he gotten to the point where he will work on his own without you having to put him back to work? I've got a guy (fortunatly 5th gen) who will work one cycle, then wants to go off to do something else. It took quite a while (and a few red gloves!) to get him to self-start working.

Arnie seems to have a good system: 3 work cycles, then a break, then back to work.

And yes, leaving the game on all night really does help!

He does work on his own sometimes because I gave him candy and praises for working. When the game is not paused, I'm watching him and making sure he stays working til he earns money. But his progress bar has not moved even though he's working and not going off to do something else. I will try the overnight thing to see if he progresses any.

Okay, I hope it works! If not, we can try to look into why it's doing that.