Schedule I is all about a wild world of drug empire-building where you’re juggling strains, dealers, grow ops, and sketchy customers all at once. It’s chaotic, it’s hilarious, and it’s surprisingly addictive. But nothing kills the high like when your employees suddenly stop working. Just standing there like NPCs in a trance, ignoring orders, and tanking your whole operation. If you’ve run into this frustrating bug, don’t worry! We’ve gathered all the fixes and workarounds players have discovered so far to get your crew back on the grind.
Players have been reporting a frustrating bug in Schedule I where employees, especially chemists, suddenly stop functioning altogether. Refusing to use mixers, standing frozen in front of ovens, or clustering together in glitched positions. Attempts to fix them by reloading, using the skateboard to ram them, or canceling their beds often don’t work. The issue tends to return within a day or two, making the game nearly unplayable for some. So, if you too are encountering the same issue, consider reading this guide for workarounds.
Schedule I Employees Stuck/Not Working Issue: Is there any fix yet?
The devs are working on making the game better, and while they are doing so, you will have to rely on the community-suggested workarounds to deal with issues like this. So, here are some workarounds to get your workers up and working again.
Bed Assignment & Payments
Every worker must be assigned a bed, and that bed must contain money. If a worker wakes up unpaid, they’ll refuse to work for the day. This is the most basic but critical step to keep your workforce operational. Sometimes, even if you’ve already paid them, removing and re-adding money to the bed can reset their status. It’s like a manual refresh of their employment contract.
Dialogue and Reassignment Fixes
Use the in-game interaction option to ask idle workers what’s wrong. They might inform you of missing assignments or unclear job status. If they say, “I have nothing to do,” it usually means they’re glitched or misassigned. Unassign and then reassign them to their respective workstations. This can realign their task queue and usually forces them to snap back into action.
Daily or Session Resets
Sleeping not only moves time forward but also resets many worker states. It’s a gentle way to resolve stuck routines and generally gets workers back on task by the next in-game day. Saving your progress and reloading the game fully refreshes the AI state and task scheduling. It’s a more technical reset than sleeping and can fix persistent bugs without drastic action.
Knock the Worker Out
If a worker refuses to respond to anything else, punching them until they pass out acts as a hard reset. After sleeping, they’ll wake up and often return to work. You can even move them during this state to remove them from stuck positions.
Space and Layout
Items like pots and stations placed too close to walls can cause interaction failures. Workers might ignore them or be unable to access them. Ensure enough clearance on all sides to allow smooth task execution. Avoid cramming stations and racks right next to each other. Even if it looks efficient, it can disrupt worker pathfinding. Leave a tile or two of space for safe movement and interaction. If your packaging stations or brick presses don’t have a designated destination (like a shelf), workers will just hold onto items and do nothing. Once a destination is assigned, they’ll deliver the goods properly instead of wandering.
And those are the most effective workarounds we have for now to deal with the workers and chemists not working issue in Schedule I. We hope your doubts on this matter were cleared. If you want access to more such interesting gaming-related queries, make sure to visit DigiStatement first. You can also click here to learn what to do if your employees steal items in the game.
