business as usual

1. The normal course of some activity, as in The fire destroyed only a small section of the store, so it's business as usual. This term originated as an announcement that a commercial establishment was continuing to operate in spite of fire, construction, or some similar interruption. It had been extended to broader use by 1914, when Winston Churchill said in a speech: “The maxim of the British people is ‘Business as usual,’” which became a slogan for the rest of World War I. Today it may be used in this positive sense and also pejoratively, as in Never mind that most civilians are starving to death—the ministry regards its job to be business as usual. [Late 1800s]

Example Sentences

But prominent voices within the pro-Palestinian movement note that, behind the scenes, the situation is largely business as usual.

From BBC

He said the fire had placed pressure on "business as usual" for fire fighting around the county, especially as the force was largely an on-call service.

From BBC

To be clear, there were plenty of corporate DEI efforts that were counterproductive to the purported cause, serving mainly to burnish a corporation’s image or to wave away employee and investor requests for more foundational changes to business as usual.

From Slate

My family and I stopped talking about the incident and went back to business as usual, putting money on his commissary, sending him books and figuring out how to get messages to him via the new facility’s byzantine communications systems.

From Salon

As a result, opponents say, the cap-and-trade program amounts to a get-out-of-jail-free card for polluters, allowing them to continue business as usual without really eliminating harmful emissions in the state — particularly in the low-income and disadvantaged communities that tend to live closest to polluting facilities.

From Los Angeles Times