One of my top ten all time favorite expressions is: OBE'd, or Overcome By Events. This came from my great friend Ray, who is dead now, but he was the finest sailor and the best leader I ever knew. But anyway, it's used in conversation like this:
Q: Ray, how come you didn't (insert task) like you were gonna?
A: Man, I was OBE'd.
OBE is a non-actionable response. You only tell somebody you've been OBE'd if it's somebody you trust with the truth, and it's somebody who understands how events can grab you, and if the events are truly serious. It's a statement of respect and truth between equals that precludes any follow-up.
What brings this to my blog is I just found OBE'd (which I always thought was Ray's word) in an online dictionary. Take a look at:
OBE.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overcome_by_events
Overcome By Events (OBE) or Overtaken By Events (OTBE), is a term of military origin used when a situation changes so rapidly that previously proposed courses of action are no longer relevant.
I remember learning about this at work. Projects would get proposed, and some progress would be made, but eventually they would fall by the wayside. Whenever a followup was made, I'd sometimes hear "Oh yeah, that's now OBE."
To the best of my knowledge, and I've tried searching this out several different ways, the term Overcome By Events (OBE) doesn't show up anywhere prior to 1986 or earlier. I would love to be corrected or set straight, possibly having heard it in passing during my 13 years of active duty in the Coast Guard prior to that point in time. But, to the best of my knowledge I myself coined that phrase while stationed at Coast Guard Headquarters in the Office of Personnel and Training some time between 1986 and 1988. Again, if it existed before then, great but I have yet to find reference to that acronym anywhere earlier than the period I've referenced.
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