[hvidgaard]

I always talk them into making an ordering, and it's not difficult. If my managers fail they escalate to it to me. It usually goes something like this:

   Me: You need to prioritize the items.
   PO: I cannot, they're all important.
   Me: If you do not, we will make them by the order we want, 
       possibly coin flip, but probably in order from easiest to hardest.
   PO: Fair enough, you get them all done anyway.
   Me: That is not a given and you know that, but I will send you an 
       email for confirmation that any of them can be dropped to
       meet the deadline, okay?
   PO: Hold on, can I at least pick a subset that you know will be done?
   Me: Sure, and don't stop until you have roughly 3 equally sized, 
       by estimate, categories: Must-have, Ought-to-have, Nice-to-have.

By the time we're heading into the "Ought-to-have" I tell them to do it again. I fear that I some day might be in a position where I do not have the weight to do this, but as it stands right now, not a single developer produce a line of code if someone waltzes in and tries to decide both scope and deadline.

[0x445442]

You know, I've seen a number of Uncle Bob talks where he emphasizes professionalism and every time he does I envision interactions like you've described. But every time I hear this I think to myself, well he's in a unique position because of his brand and companies seek him out for is skill set; he has the luxury of being professional.

You've added the qualifier he never seems to add, that someday you might not be in the position to act professional. This is a sad but accurate commentary on the current state of things in our "profession".

[jacobush]

I guess also some people find out by trying. It's scary when you don't know if the response will be "fine, ok then" or "hm, well talk about this later", and you find yourself demoted or encouraged to leave (Europe) or fired (more a US thing I guess).

[hvidgaard]

If you're punished for professionalism, you know it's time to find a different place to work. If you don't it's a one way ticket to stress and depression.