Why Are You Trying to Make Me a Morning Person?

Over the past week, I've read two articles on becoming a morning person. Newsweek has a typical rehash of tips for tricking your body into doing the unnatural (and notes as an aside that it might be your genes' fault and not your lack of willpower that keeps you at the snooze button). More interesting is the Slate piece, that follows a woman and her boyfriend as they follow doctors orders to become morning people. Though the piece ends on the obligatory high note of making progress, it it fraught with the sheer agony and futility of trying to reprogram your internal clock.

But, seriously, in this day and age of telecommuting, offshore call centers, flex time and so on, is there really still this societal pressure to conform to some industrial revolution 9 to 5 ideal?