This whole 48-hour week doolally

It strikes me that when you decide what sort of job you want to do in life, one of the things you think about is working hours - do you want long holidays or short holidays; are you prepared to do shifts in the early morning, in the evening or at night; what about overtime; holiday and weekend work; are you prepared to be 'on-call', and so on and so forth.

We all know that there are plenty of true 9-to-5 jobs and plenty of jobs which traditionally have long hours (or involve shift-work, holiday work etc). So on the whole, people get what they ask for, so what's the problem? Surely, those jobs will pay a slightly higher wage to compensate for the inconvenience? Why does this need to be regulated? If you don't want to work 48 hours a week (and I certainly don't), then just don't become a lorry driver or a junior doctor (about the only two jobs I can think of where your tiredness actually endangers other people's lives, and where I can see a point in having a restriction, practicalities aside).

There. That's that fixed.