If you are reading this - you’re not an Ike.

One of the frustrations in any retail job I have had is when the “Ike” customer comes in the door. I first heard this name used by my mother when she was referring to one of my fathers work colleagues. When I asked her why she called him Ike, she replied ‘…he’s an I Know Everything!’


Ike’s come in all shapes and sizes, male and female, young and old, but they all have the same habit of asking you a question and then ignoring your answer (if you should dare say anything that conflicts with what they “know”). For example, a very common question I get asked is ‘Do you have any Italian coffee?’ If you try to explain to them that you have several types of Italian roast coffee beans, they ask ‘which one is from Italy?’

The obvious thing to do at this point is to try to explain to the customer that coffee isn’t grown in Italy as the climate and conditions aren’t right for coffee beans to grow. NO!!! He’ll only respond with something like, ‘…yes it does! I had some lovely coffee when I was in Italy.’

For some reason some people think that if you can get a good cup of coffee in Italy, then it must be grown there as well. To the Ike this makes perfect sense, so they look at you and start to correct you, as clearly, working in a coffee shop you have no idea about the outside world. I get hundreds of Ike’s in every month; far more rare, however is the customer who is genuinely interested in the answer!

Today I had a customer who asked me for some Turkish coffee. When I explained to him that Turkish coffee was a type of grind rather than a bean, I was able to help him in making a selection of coffee beans which I ground as Turkish.

As I said at the beginning, if you are reading this then you don’t need to worry. You are clearly not an Ike - you went looking for information online. An Ike would never think to check what they “know” before they go to spend their money. Instead they squander time and effort in seeking the impossible in the defence of what they think they know. The smart shopper is more determine to get it right. Ike’s are born from failing to understand that, it’s not what you know that makes you knowledgeable, it’s your insatiable need to know more.

“The worst people; those who know everything and believe they do.” Elias Canetti, The Human Province: ‘1961’.

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