Sims not going to work

I've actually been having this problem for a while ... at least since the Lovestruck patch.  My sim would go to the door to go to school or work and then glitch for a second.  Then they would go off and do something else.  Telling them to go to work or school via the careers panel would do nothing.  The only thing that works is to save the game, completely exit out of the game and restart.  Once the game is restarted, they either go to work or school on their own or the career panel button works.

Since this has been happening a while, I did notice a couple of things. It only occurs if the sim is on the 2nd floor when it's time to work so I make sure my sims are on the first floor when it is time to go to work or school.  I notice that this glitch occurs either at the bottom of the stairs or at the front gate.  I tried resetting and changing out the gate, changing stair cases, making staircase shorter etc.  Nothing works.  Mind you, it doesn't happen all the time.  Every once in a while or several times in a row and then it returns to normal.  Tried this in modded and unmodded games.