My Eden Life: Jerry Ojo

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What’s your name?

My name is Jerry Ojo. 

Tell me about your role at Eden

I am the quality assurance associate in the laundry department. I handle the operations of the laundry unit. I interface with other team members and units to ensure that customers’ clothes are received properly, filed into our records, disbursed to the respective cleaners and delivered back to them in good shape. 

What’s your day to day like?

Every morning, I check in with the customer success team (Gardeners) on previous deliveries to ensure customers are satisfied with the service and there are no issues. If there are, I record and resolve them as fast as possible.

Then I check our delivery list and ensure that all the clothes we need to pick up are collected on time. I also assign laundry bags based on the laundry partner’s capacity and I monitor laundry deliveries.

Lastly, I do a quality control check on all the clothes that arrived from the laundry partners and ensure that they are sent out in the perfect condition. I also monitor the deliveries to ensure that the customer receives their item in 48 hours or less.

How would you explain your job to a 5-year-old?

I make people feel good by making sure they have clean clothes to wear every day.

Have you always wanted to do laundry?

Yes. One day in school, I was terribly broke and I needed money to eat. My neighbour at the time wanted to go out but he had a pile of clothes and was considering staying back to wash them. 

He wished out loud that if there was someone he could pay to do it for him and I jumped up and was like “I fit do am, pay me nau.” So he agreed and paid me a thousand naira.

I washed the clothes and that’s how my laundry business in school started. I printed flyers and started distributing them. I actually made a lot of money even though I had to miss a lot of classes.

I dreamt about owning a big laundromat. The image I had in my head was just having huge machines that wash and dry clothes.

Then, I joined Eden and I realized that there’s more to laundry than just washing. I feel like it’s a privilege to be here and to get this exposure. If I had opened a business with what I knew then, I don’t think I would have succeeded. 

There’s one thing I’ve learned in my time here, it’s “what you don’t measure, you can’t improve on.” If I start a laundry business now, believe me, it’ll be massive. We measure everything here and that has helped me keep track of the team’s performance and how to improve on it.

How did you come to work for Eden?

In 2020, I applied as a trainee at a laundry service but I didn’t get in. On the day of the interview, I felt overdressed because I wore semi-corporate (shirts and plain trousers) and sneakers. 

Imagine getting there and everyone else was dressed formally in a suit and tie. When the CEO saw me, he asked if I was for the interview and I said yes, he asked “where’s your jacket?” I said I didn’t know that we were supposed to wear a jacket and he literally asked me to get out. 

What?!

Yeah. In 2021, I got a call from the laundry company’s HR and I was referred to Eden Life. She told me that the founders were looking to improve the quality of life of Africans and needed laundry experts. That was all I needed to hear to apply. So, I applied and got called for an interview. The rest is history.

If you weren’t doing laundry, what would you be doing?

If I wasn’t doing this, I’d either be working in operations or customer service. I worked as a customer service manager for a while before Eden and I love helping people solve problems. 

I’d also probably be selling cars or sneakers, I love sneakers a lot. I wouldn’t mind ending up as a professional drummer. I play the drums all the time and I don’t mind getting paid to do it.

What do you find most interesting about Eden?

For me, it’s the culture and the processes. The way things are done is so efficient. If you’re doing well, you get praised, if you’re not doing so great, you get ample feedback on how you can improve, if you need help, you get it, everything is so great.

For context, I have worked in a place where if you are sick, you have to come to the office so the HR will touch your neck and check your temperature as proof before you get sick leave. 

Omooo.

Yeah. That’s why I love working here, the people come first. If I’m sick, all I need to do is inform my team lead and HR. It gets announced and everybody starts showing you love and wishing you well. You can tell they care about your welfare above anything else.

What do you do when you’re not working?

I’m mostly with my family, watching Netflix. If I’m not doing that, I’m on the drums, making music somewhere. I also like to go to restaurants, expensive ones. 

What would you say to people that want to work at Eden Life?

It’s a great place to be. It is one of the best places to work in the country. There are so many amazing people and the love is genuine.