All the write skills?
I think the dark side makes for the most interesting people. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to keep the sheeple from stagnating into oblivion.
Incidentally, you kind of touched on what was wrong with career day. They over focused on what was needed in the community, rather than careers at large. I grew up in a small, blue collar southern town. One of those small towns where there was only one or two gigs in town as far as employment opportunities go. So for career day, there was military recruiters, college recruiters looking for athletes, a couple of trade schools looking for students, and those 3 factories looking for unskilled workers.
If you wanted to do anything else, you were pretty much on your own figuring it out, funding and all. Career Day was widely considered an early leave day because they didn't make you go.
And keep in mind, that considering where I spent the first half of my childhood, I was still under the impression that I was living large in the big city. There were 3 grocery stores for crying out loud (just to show off too, because they only needed two of them) and traffic lights all up and down the main drag.
So how was the council ruining children's lives? And how did you make them miserable? Did you drive them to drink?