Level three and up, Sims can solicit their services to other Sims; only during work hours, however. I noticed that if I am not playing the Sim before the work day starts, I will not receive any opportunities. Maybe that is happening in your game.
Anyone else worried about Justine Keaton's use of the bubble machine? Surely she would know that blowing things can lead to big problems later, enough to make your belly ache.
From what I read, updating the game to the latest version can help. Here is the thread I got this information from: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/267249.page#3529929 From then on, I am at a loss.
I'm not sure if I understand entirely what you are saying, but you cannot play the game without the disk. Furthermore, discussion of how to play without the game disc is against the rules.
When this happened to me, I found that not fully patching the base game before installing the expansion pack made the two games incompatible. Did you patch the base game before installing Ambitions? You do not need World Adventures for Ambitions to work.
When you start a new game, the game will have already placed the new community lots. When you load a saved game, the game will prompt you to place the lots where you want them or allow you the option to place later.