For many Caribbean women, ambition is not simply a personal trait. It is often inherited. It lives in the stories of parents who worked multiple jobs, grandparents who kept moving well past retirement age and families who made sacrifice feel synonymous with love.
But Cristina Jerome, the founder of Offworque, is asking a necessary question: What happens when hard work leaves no room for the person doing it?
After building a career in marketing through campaigns with brands including Adidas and Topicals, as well as work in the music industry, Cristina reached a point of burnout that made her reconsider the pace she had normalized. She had accomplished the milestones she once believed would make her feel fulfilled, but she was exhausted. The success was there, yet the rest, care and room to simply exist were not.
Photo Courtesy of Irma Jerome
That realization became the foundation for Offworque, a nonprofit community designed to help people decenter their jobs and reconnect with themselves beyond their professional identities. For Cristina, the mission is not about abandoning ambition or quitting work altogether. It is about creating a more sustainable relationship with both.
We often introduce ourselves by saying, ‘Hi, my name is Cristina and I work in marketing,’ instead of, ‘Hi, my name is Cristina and I’m a human being, she says. I wanted to create a safe space centered around well-being, wellness and reconnecting with yourself.
More Than a Break
In a culture that often treats burnout as a badge of honor, rest is frequently reduced to sleep, a nap or a rare day off. Cristina sees it differently.
Rest is rejuvenation, she says. It is for the mind, body and soul.
For her, rejuvenation can mean getting outside, making time for creativity, taking a lunch break with a friend, visiting a new city, trying unfamiliar food or simply giving herself permission to experience joy without tying it to productivity. Rest is not only about recovering from exhaustion. It is also about restoring imagination, curiosity, perspective and connection.
That distinction matters, particularly for women whose schedules are often shaped by work obligations, family expectations, caregiving, community responsibilities and the pressure to always be available. Cristina encourages people to make room for the parts of life that do not appear on a résumé.
I think everyone needs that reset, she says. If you can, you should schedule it once a month.
Living in Washington, D.C., a city she describes as structured and fast-paced, Cristina intentionally seeks opportunities to refresh her mind through travel and new environments. A trip to Los Angeles or New York can become an opening to breathe differently, meet new people and remember that life can extend beyond routine.
[Additional Read: Taking Off the Cape: Why Caribbean Women Are Rewriting the ‘Strong Woman’ Narrative on Mental Health ]
Creating Community Beyond Career
Cristina’s burnout was not only about the volume of work. It was also about the way work had begun to shape nearly every conversation in her life.
She noticed that even when she was away from the office, she and her peers were still talking about the office. Her friendships often revolved around colleagues, industries and shared professional frustrations. The conversations were repetitive, and they left little room for the fuller realities of being human.
I wanted to talk about our hobbies, our love lives, our families and the things we were excited about, she says.
That desire led her to build Offworque as a place where people can meet outside of their industries and job titles. The community has hosted journaling workshops, cooking classes, pottery classes and other experiences meant to help people decompress and discover shared interests beyond their careers.
It is an invitation to meet someone not because they can help you professionally, but because they also love journaling, food, art, movement or meaningful conversation.
What about the finance girl who also likes to journal? Cristina asks. We can be friends, too.
The point is simple but powerful. Community becomes richer when people are allowed to show up as whole individuals rather than networking opportunities
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A Caribbean Rebellion
As a Panamanian and Haitian woman, Cristina understands that choosing rest can be complicated. She comes from a family shaped by hard work, sacrifice and the determination to create opportunity. As the first American-born person on both sides of her family, she also grew up with a familiar message: Make something of yourself. Work hard. Take advantage of every opportunity your family worked to make possible.
I think work is kind of in our blood, she says.
For many first-generation Caribbean people, this mindset can create a form of survival mode that is difficult to switch off. Rest can feel indulgent. Vacation days can feel unnecessary. Slowing down can seem like a risk when previous generations had to work constantly to keep their families afloat.
Cristina has had to challenge that belief, first within herself and then within her family. She describes herself as “a revolutionist” in this area, someone helping loved ones understand that rest does not cancel out their work ethic. It can strengthen it.
You can do those things while also taking care of yourself, she says.
Her role as the family’s unofficial life coach has included encouraging her mother to take time off for beauty appointments, exercise and community activities. She has urged relatives to use vacation days and sick time. Sometimes, she has taken a more direct route.
I might book the appointment and say, ‘Well, I already booked it for you, so you don’t have a choice,’she says with a laugh. Or I’ll say, ‘I’m going to come pick you up and we’re going to do it together.’
Still, Cristina recognizes the limits of trying to change people. Older relatives may feel they cannot afford time away from work, or they may believe rest is only for younger generations. Her approach has become a balance of encouragement, practical support and acceptance.
You cannot force people to take time off, and that is OK, she says. I try my best three times, and after that, I’m getting my nails done.
That sentence carries an important lesson for first daughters, caregivers and women who often feel responsible for everyone else’s well-being. You can offer support without taking on the burden of saving everyone.
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A Father’s Birthday Trip
One of Cristina’s clearest examples of care as resistance comes from her father.
For years, he rarely took time off for his birthday. Like many Caribbean fathers, he was the provider, fixer and person who kept things moving. Celebrating himself seemed less urgent than work and responsibility.
Cristina began asking him a simple question: When was the last time he took a trip for his birthday or allowed himself space to celebrate?
A few years ago, he traveled to Panama for his birthday. It was a meaningful shift, one that required what Cristina calls “bullying and finessing,” but it became a turning point for the family. Her father’s decision helped make rest more visible and more permissible for everyone around him.
Now, her mother takes time off for her birthday. Her cousins and sisters are doing the same. Her father is planning a birthday trip to St. Martin.
It may be a small step, but it is their step forward, Cristina says.
In many families, transformation does not always begin with a dramatic declaration. Sometimes it begins with one person taking a birthday trip. One mother booking a half day. One grandmother being reminded that retirement is not a failure of usefulness. One daughter choosing not to inherit exhaustion as her only measure of love or success.
A Different Definition of Success
Cristina also wants Caribbean women to become more comfortable with trial, error and the possibility that a path may not work out.
Too often, she says, young women feel pressured to get everything right on the first attempt. They are expected to build stable careers, become financially independent, make their families proud and create lives that look successful from the outside. But that pressure can make experimentation feel dangerous.
I think more people need to try and fail, she says. You do not know what you like until you try something and decide that you do not like it.
That may mean moving to a new city, changing careers, starting a business, pursuing a creative idea or leaving something that no longer feels aligned. And if it does not work out, Cristina believes there should be less shame in returning home and beginning again.
We have to go out and spread our wings and try to make it, she says. If something does not work out, you can always go back home.
Her understanding of success is equally expansive. It is not limited to income, degrees, awards or visible milestones. It is also emotional.
Success looks like reaching the emotion that you imagined you would feel when you reached your goals, she says.
A college degree can represent more than a credential. For Cristina, earning her communications degree was also about being the first Caribbean person in her family to achieve that milestone. It was pride, honor, relief, joy and the ability to share that accomplishment with others.
That is the kind of success Offworque makes room for: the inner feeling behind the achievement, not only the achievement itself.
Rest Is Part of the Work
Cristina’s message to younger Caribbean women is not to reject their families, culture or ambitions. It is to include themselves in the future they are working so hard to build.
She encourages women to journal, reflect and ask what their lives might look like if they had more control over their choices. She invites them to test small acts of autonomy, whether that means sleeping in, taking a solo trip, using vacation time, trying a new hobby or waking up early because they choose to, not because they feel forced to prove their worth.
I want them to consider putting themselves into the mix and taking care of themselves, she says.
For Caribbean women navigating identity, family expectations, career pressure and personal ambition, that can be a radical act. Rest is not laziness. It is not a lack of gratitude. It is not an abandonment of the sacrifices that came before.
It is a declaration that the women who come after us deserve more than survival.
Through Offworque, Cristina is helping people remember that they are not only employees, entrepreneurs, creatives, daughters, first-generation success stories or providers. They are human beings with needs, desires, hobbies, joy and lives that deserve to be lived fully.
And perhaps that is the most meaningful form of liberation: building a life where success includes the freedom to breathe, create, celebrate and be Offworque.
Learn more at Offworque.
