Just another day at the office?

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, particularly “another day at the office”: Last year, when we won a game, everyone was thrilled, but this year, a win is, like, just another day at the office.

My comments:

The speaker’s main point or message is: This year’s team is a much better team than last year’s team.

Because winning comes easy with this team whereas last year a win was rare and far between, something that was never easy to come by.

Because, as the speaker points out, last year, when the team got a win, everyone was thrilled, exhilarated, overjoyed while, this year, winning feels like nothing special.

That’s what we can safely infer, because, this year, winning feels like “just another day at the office”.

In other words, business as usual.

Now, let me explain.

The speaker likens winning to “just another day from the office”, and we all know what a day at the office means, right?

A day of office work, right?

Yeah, like, ordinary work, routine, mundane, unexciting because every day is the same from the day before and the day after, and the day next.

Office work doesn’t vary much from day to day, does it?

And from this derives the figurative meaning of “just another day at the office”, something that happens every day, something that’s commonplace and, hence, not so special.

In our example, when the speaker likens winning this year to “just another day at the office,” we know that the team wins so many games these days that the players have become numb to winning. They’re no longer overhyped with joy and pleasure. Instead, it feels like routine, ordinary and unspectacular.

Winning is something they’re used to and are familiar with.

And that’s a good thing, too.

All right, let’s read a few media examples of “just another day at the office”:

1. Short of blowing herself up on stage, it keeps getting harder for Lady Gaga to top herself.

Last night at Madison Square Garden, in front of packed house that included Sir Paul McCartney, the reigning Queen of Outrageous wore revealing frocks, sprouted wings, was soaked in fake blood and dressed as a naughty nun. Yeah, it was just another day at the office for Gaga.

The big arrive-in-an-egg moment, as in her Grammy entrance, never arrived at the first of two MSG gigs being taped for a single May 7 broadcast on HBO. At this show on Gaga’s never-ending “Monster Ball” tour, much was familiar from last year’s four-concert stint at MSG.

Still, despite knowing what was coming, fans weren’t disappointed.

Gaga made the show feel fresh with massive energy and an array of costumes – some new, as well as her old risqué favorites: lingerie, body suits, dresses with angular cuts, and provocative gauzy numbers where fashion and attitude collided.

In all, there were 15 costume changes over the course of the two-hour gig, which helped Gaga create an anything-goes climate – erotic and exotic.

If there were moments where Gaga looked more ridiculous than revolutionary, they weren’t noticed by the sold-out crowd, which cheered louder the more outlandish her fashions became.

- Lady is a champ, NYPost.com, February 22, 2011.

2. It was just another day at the office for Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah as he added another goal and assist to his tally against Aston Villa. However, this time around, his contribution only managed to secure a single point.

The Egyptian star broke the deadlock before the half-hour mark, hammering home after Diogo Jota capitalized on a sloppy error from Villa. It appeared the match could only swing in one direction, but surprisingly, it was Liverpool who found itself trailing at half-time.

Salah set up Trent Alexander-Arnold for the equalizer with thirty minutes left on the clock, but despite the remaining time, neither side could find a winning goal. Having played one more game than second-placed Arsenal, the Premier League leaders are now eight points clear, although that gap could shrink to five next month.

Arne Slot admitted after the game that he was disappointed, and judging by his silence, Salah likely shares the sentiment. As he exited the pitch, the 32-year-old looked visibly disappointed, head bowed.

This has been followed by a silence on his social media channels, having regularly shared his thoughts after games this season. In contrast, other team members have posted their own reactions to the match.

Captain Virgil van Dijk’s role is to galvanise the squad, which he has done, while Ibrahima Konate and Alexis Mac Allister echoed the sentiment of ‘take the point and move on’.

Salah might not be satisfied with just a point, as he set the title challenge tone after Liverpool’s victory over Brighton in November. “Top of the table is where this club belongs. Nothing less,” he declared on Instagram. “All teams win matches but there’s only one champion in the end. That’s what we want.”

As it stands, this could be Salah’s final shot at clinching the Premier League title with Liverpool unless a new deal is struck before July.

- Mohamed Salah reaction speaks volumes after Liverpool drops points in title race, Liverpool.com, February 20, 2025.

3. Yesterday was an ordinary day at the White House. The president issued some executive orders, made a personnel announcement, and hosted a foreign leader. Along with carrying out these executive duties, he took questions in the Oval Office. In the course of answering them, he praised the success of his policies, condemned crime, and waxed patriotic as he praised the American flag.

Pretty much business as usual.

But of course, the business of this president is not fundamentally like that of his predecessors. The business of this president is subverting our free government. And yesterday was another day at the office for carrying out that business.

President Trump’s most notable executive order sought to further bolster his claim that he could call on state National Guard troops, regardless of whether state authorities wanted him to, to “assist in quelling civil disturbances.” Trump was straightforward about what he was doing. When asked, “Are you prepared to order National Guard troops into American cities if those governors don’t request the federal deployment,” he answered, “I am.”

And since the military will have to be prepared for its new role of domestic law enforcement, the president also ordered the secretary of defense to “begin ensuring that each State’s Army National Guard and Air National Guard are resourced, trained, organized, and available to assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate.” Indeed, “the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.”

So the National Guard is being slowly – or not so slowly – turned into the president’s own rapid domestic deployment force, to be used at his unchecked discretion. Its deployment, regardless of the wishes of local authorities or any real showing of emergency, was once presented as exceptional in the cases of Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Now, it is to become the rule.

As is the firing of any federal official who stands in the way of the president’s power. Last night, the president announced a personnel action, the removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. No president has ever removed a Federal Reserve governor. And a Supreme Court case from earlier this term had seemed to cordon off the Federal Reserve from Trump’s Article II-rationalized stampede over legal and administrative barriers in the service of getting complete and personal control of the federal government.

But, no matter. Trump claimed he had cause to remove Cook, as the statute requires. But the cause consists of allegations that Cook falsified records to obtain a mortgage, an allegation that has not been adjudicated or even legally charged. It also involves a filing that is rarely prosecuted and that happened before Cook joined the Federal Reserve and has no relationship to her job performance.

- Dictator for a Day… a Month… Years? TheBulk.com, August 26, 2025.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）