Villagers won't take a profession even standing directly next to a work station

What time of the day is it?

I've run them thru many days and even if they do take a profession from the workstation directly at their knees, they lose them, every time. the game has been thru roughly 10 mc days with no success in them either taking or keeping a station

so i just set the time to 1, and will run through the day again till 12000. i have 3 villagers, each directly next to a loom, a composter and a smithing table. none of them at the start of the day had taken a profession. one of them has taken the toolsmith position right away, the other two at 2000 still have not taken one of the other 2 professions.  they just waive their head back and forth.

as of 4000, nothing yet on the other two

thru 6500 nothing yet

8200, still haven't taken a job

thru 10000 still nothing

and thru 12000 they didn't take a job

now they took a workstation after 12000. My thought was this was impossible, that they are supposed to sleep and not look at work issues.

other villagers in teh same area have voluntarily given up their work stations. i have 12, and 4 more dropped their profession without being interacted with or hit, damaged or harmed in any way

I believe i may have figured this one out. there appears to have been a  few villagers around 100 blocks away that may have locked onto a couple of the workstations.

Please check if this still applies to 1.15.2 or the latest 1.16 development snapshot (currently that is 20w09a).