Trying to get to the bottom of what the requirements actually are (which is often, in my experience, a misapplication, misunderstanding, or misdefinition of ter

Trying to get to the bottom of what the requirements actually are (which is often, in my experience, a misapplication, misunderstanding, or misdefinition of terms) is considered being difficult or not being a team player. There are usually ways of dealing with this situation without confrontation or hostility though, and the distinction between requirements and solutions is an important one - in this case the client tried to present a solution when they should be stating the problem. I find most clients are happy to rewind and state the problem, and it helps a lot in presenting an alternative solution if you can then say - well this other solution solves your problem (and is not impossible given other constraints!). I'm not defending the clients in this video, who are made to act as idiots parroting obviously absurd lines, what I'm questioning is whether this is even a caricature of reality. I think it's more an accurate representation of the world view that some people retreat to when faced with difficult clients who don't understand solutions and want impossible things (and we've all met them). Sure there are political considerations and sometimes companies are completely dysfunctional - in that case it's best to fire the client or job and move on, but it's very rare in my experience as a developer or designer to come across that. If you can't do your job in a given setup, and can't push back, the best option is to leave, because you can't fix that and it is an unhealthy situation for all parties.