We’ve always done it that way

In the world I spent most of my career, this phrase was a negative thing. IT changes all the time and businesses often keep processes longer than they should.

But in some parts of life, this phrase makes sense. I was watching an Alton Brown video and he was explaining some of the chemistry behind cookie making. And the way people (grandmas, great grandmas, great great grandmas, etc) have been doing things for years makes sense, even if they didn’t know the chemistry.

We have always said “we’ve always done it that way” is a bad phrase. We should evaluate each case before using this.