Office Talk -- "Back in the Day"

(R. Crumb's "Mr. Natural," the boomer generation's take on "Father Time")

So, after more than a year-long hiatus, I have decided to revive an ongoing feature called "Office Talk": an almost weekly "Sunday column" -- not every week, not always Sunday, not quite a column -- on annoying office cliches. The purpose of the series -- which I halted, in part, because I was running out of material -- was to examine why we use these phrases, not whether we should use them. If I showed any contempt for the subject of my columns (the phrases, not the people), it was from the perspective of someone who really hates to be unaware why he and his peers keep saying the same things, over and over again. I do not like the conformist in me. But I know that he lives there for a reason, and I have attempted to make peace. I miss making peace with him. So much, in fact, that you can say I'm feeling nostalgic, in the "Mad Men" sense of the word (see below). Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the past.

But how do I restart the column after so much time has passed? It just so happens that I have found a new phrase to examine, and it has everything to do with the past. The phrase, back in the day, which first surfaced many years ago, has made a comeback. I have heard it spoken in the office (my office, other people's offices) at least a dozen times in the past few months. As I used to say -- back in the day, when I first began writing this column -- "what's up with that?"

First time I noticed the phrase (i.e., the first time I noticed the phrase was a cliche) was back on a warm April day, when I meet with a prospective client who ... how shall I say, has been around the block a few times. In an effort to check out just how experienced I was, she quizzed me on industry people who participated not just in the creation of the current bubble but the last bubble, as well. When she saw she was in good company (I've been around the block myself), she made the requisite bonding gesture by recalling what things were like for both of us "back in the day."

In earlier columns, I detailed the difficulties one encounters when trying to decipher the true meaning of an annoying phrase (the second reason I had halted the column). But in the case of back in the day, it was laid out before me at that April meeting in startling clarity. My interlocutor was acknowledging that we have entered a time (the Web 2.0 bubble) that resembles another time (the Web 1.0 bubble), and that it was great to be among those who have survived. It's a shared pleasure or pain, based on a past pleasure or pain ... just like nostalgia. But unlike nostalgia -- which the writers of Showtime's Mad Men beautifully describe as the thing that "takes you to the place where you ache to go again" -- back in the day is more like a war wound, which can have the effect of either helping one bond with other "veterans," or distancing oneself from inexperienced "civilians" (ask McCain). At a more recent business meeting, the host -- a partner at an interactive marketing agency -- introduced herself by listing some of the things she endured "back in the day." The cliche was not wasted on anyone -- everyone understood what she meant -- but it didn't bring out the warm and fuzzies for the young-un's in attendance. They were still building their resumes, and ready to do battle for the first time. Their day had just begun.

Comments

[John]

I can't help but ask somewhat cynically, "What day?"

[Helen]

That phrase has driven me crazy. I have a picture in my head of an old man sitting on bench in front of the feed store,chewing on blade of grass..saying"Back in the day we never forgot to take off our hat to a lady, these younguns have no manners." What day indeed??

[zip]

It is a tiresome phrase, especially when used by people younger than forty.