A jamoke's take on using the word "jamoke"

An email arrived early last month from Lindsay Tucker, a former graduate student who is now an accomplished writer, editor, and podcaster.

“Did you write this?!” she asked, using both the question mark and exclamation point to expressively end her question. A screenshot from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary definition of the word “jamoke” followed with this sample sentence attributed to me: “Why hasn’t anyone thought of inventing a laptop case that converts into a portable office so that when a jamoke like me is stuck in a joint like this, he can use the case as a portable work desk?”

It sure sounded like me, but I had no recollection of where I might have written it, so I had to search the sentence to find the source. Sure enough, it appeared in a “Road Warrior” column I’d written for “Inc.” magazine in December 1998, about a decade before Lindsay ever had to endure taking a course with me.

After I emailed Lindsay that those were indeed my words, I asked why she was asking. She responded that she was having a debate with Aviv Rubinstien, her co-host on her podcast “Lyrics for Lunch,” a podcast that explores the meanings of popular songs. It was “a plea really,” she writes, “for him to stop saying ‘jamoke’ on our show” because she felt like it was racist. It was then that Aviv quoted me to prove her wrong.

Jamoke is a slang word used pejoratively to describe someone as “inept” or “ordinary.” It’s sometimes interchangeable with the Yiddish word “schlub” which the earlier mentioned Merriam-Webster translates as “a stupid, worthless, or unattractive person.” In the article I wrote about the inability to find a laptop case that could be used as a good portable desk while stuck in the Detroit airport 23 years ago, I was using the word “jamoke” to describe myself.

To my knowledge, there are no racist connotations or derivations to the word. That doesn’t mean that the word couldn’t be used to make a racist comment. Most any word can be used to make a racist comment if the speaker is determined to use it that way.

Some who use the word “jamoke” or “schlub” do not intend either as the most uplifting of descriptors. Then again, often they are stand-ins for describing someone as an ordinary person as I did about myself in my column.

The right thing if you are uncomfortable with a word’s meaning is to look up the word as Aviv did or email the jamoke whose words Merriam-Webster used to show the word in action as Lindsay did. If you remain uncomfortable with the word, the best solution is not to use it even if it turns out to not have racist origins or not to mean what you thought it meant. One of the beauties of having a large vocabulary is the vast array of choices available to say something in a way that doesn’t make you uncomfortable to say it and avoids being offensive to whoever you’re saying it to.

In their podcast, which is a great listen, Lindsay and Aviv regularly butt heads but “in a playful way” she assures me. “He won this round, but he doesn’t win many,” she wrote, followed by a semicolon and parentheses to indicate a wink emoji. Lindsay and her expressive punctuation.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Objecting instead of invoking morality is the right thing to do

A longtime reader of the column from North Carolina we’re calling Paul wrote to tell me that about seven years ago he developed peripheral neuropathy, a condition caused by damage to the nerves that often results in pain and difficulty in using your hands or feet. Paul, who experiences occasional pain, has had to rely on hand controls to drive his car for the past five years, but he notes that he is “one of the relatively fortunate ones” because several members of his support group endure unrelenting pain.

Paul wrote to tell me that several members of his group rely on medical marijuana for pain relief that no other prescription or nonprescription remedies provided. In an effort led by Republican lawmakers, the state legislature in North Carolina has taken up the issue of legalizing the use of medical marijuana.

Although marijuana use is still against federal law, the majority of states have legalized the use of medical marijuana. (A regularly updated list appears here.) In late June, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature held a hearing where they listened to those for and against the state’s legalization of medical marijuana use.

Will Doran of “The News & Observer” in Raleigh reported that “politicians, health professionals, veterans and Christian activists” all weighed in. Bill Rabon, a Republican state senator, sponsored the bill. In the hearing, he referenced his own battles as a cancer survivor and the pain he experienced while undergoing chemotherapy. Of Rabon’s effort to legalize medical marijuana in North Carolina (albeit with far more restrictive parameters than other states), Doran reports that Rabon said: “I owe it to my fellow man. And I think you do, too.”

What got to reader Paul, however, was when some of those expressing opinions at the hearing used “morality” as a reason to thwart the legalization. According to Doran, another Republican state senator at the hearing said, “I do have a number of concerns, morally and otherwise.” Paul said he believed that “relief from severe, nonstop pain trumps the ethical concerns expressed by those opposed” to the bill.

Although it seemed fair for those in attendance to present evidence to support their stance for or against legalizing medical marijuana, Paul does raise a strong and valid point about determining the greater good, which is often a basis for making an ethical choice.

But Paul’s note is also a reminder of how, far too often, people fall back on labeling something “immoral” or “unethical” rather than simply acknowledging they don’t agree with it. In her 1965 essay “On Morality,” Joan Didion observed that “when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something” but that it is a “moral imperative that we have it,” that is when “we join the fashionable madmen” and that “is when we are in bad trouble.”

For those supporting the legalization of medical marijuana, the right thing is to express their support for it. For those objecting to it, the right thing is to object. About a week after the late June hearing Paul wrote to tell me that a key state senate committee almost unanimously approved the bill. If the bill makes its way through a few more committees in the state Senate, it would then have to pass the state House.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin. 

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Must we write every recommendation we are asked to write?

Writing recommendations for former colleagues or students can be time consuming. But it sparks a certain amount of joy to put in the time to write a strong recommendation for someone when that person did good work or added value to a class or workplace. If the former student or colleague seems poised to continue their education or accept a job that will enable them to do the kind of work they seem qualified and determined to do, writing a strong, thoughtful recommendation may take time but it never feels like something I wouldn’t gladly do.

I’ve written before about how I find it inappropriate for recommenders to expect their colleagues or former students to write out the recommendation or reference letter and simply have the recommender sign it. No matter how much you might agree with the words the requester wrote, if you agree to write a recommendation, you should write it.

After agreeing to write a recommendation for someone many years ago, the person emailed me a packet of guidance on how to write a strong recommendation. It contained samples of letters written for others by others that had been successful. It also included a checklist of the types of things the receiving organization looked for in a candidate. That kind of guidance might have been overkill, but it didn’t step over any lines. I wrote the letter I would have written without all the guidance from the packet and the person’s application was successful.

But what happens when you’re asked to write a recommendation for someone you barely know or someone about whom you don’t have the highest opinion when it comes to their traits or ability to do the type of thing they are applying to do?

Being asked to write a recommendation letter for someone you barely know is not all that uncommon. A friend of a friend or the child of a friend or a friend of a connection on LinkedIn or a friend of someone you went to school with or some other distant connection may believe that a recommendation letter from you based on your background would make a strong impression. In these cases, if you agree to consider writing a recommendation letter, the right thing to do is to talk with the person or exchange emails and get to know as much about the person as you can that’s relative to what’s being applied for. It would be wrong to exaggerate how well you know the person. Focus instead on the person’s strengths based on what you do know of him, her or them.

If you don’t have the highest opinion of someone and can’t imagine writing a recommendation letter that truly reflects your sense of the person’s abilities, then the right thing is to decline the invitation. Lying to make someone else look good is wrong. Seizing any opportunity to make someone look bad doesn’t show a lot of character unless there is a real possibility that the person might put others in danger by getting a particular job.

Ultimately, while helping people gain an opportunity to do something meaningful or important for themselves can be a satisfying endeavor, if you don’t have time or would prefer not to, just say “no.”

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2021 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.