Journalled on Saturday, 11 October 2025: Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 23 degrees, warm, sunny, windy and slightly overcast.
It is Saturday, and Yasmin arrived after taking a simulation exam at school in the morning.
I met her at the Gamboa VLT tram station, which is not the usual station I usually pick her up from; it is a little farther away, a good 10 to 15 minutes’ walk. She did not have her travel card properly credited, so I met her there, we quickly passed by the supermarket, and then had lunch at the per-kilo restaurant before we arrived home.
In the afternoon, we didn’t do anything special. It was a little overcast and rainy, and it was just one of those days in Rio when, because it is not a typically good, hot, warm, lovely sunny day, it is therefore an excuse to do very little, if anything.
We watched a film as we began discussing the possibility of her getting a seasonal job at the end of the year. She’s 18, and from my perspective, as her father, I think it would be good for her. Beyond providing income, it is character-building.
I know it’s a different time, reality from when I was her age, but I began part-time work at 11 and even younger if you count paper rounds. My first real part-time job while still at school was working at a boatyard, building narrow and long boats along the side of the canal.
I worked weekends and holidays. The pay was bad, but more importantly, it taught me a lot about discipline and responsibility. It also taught me to work with steel, including oxyacetylene cutting (which was quite dangerous at the time), welding, painting, and other boat-building skills.
Luckily, it didn’t kill me, so it made me stronger!
Later, after leaving school, I got a job at an engineering company that, in one form or another, expanded and improved my skills while also giving me opportunities to develop them further. I did this for a few years and even became a dispatch manager for the company before going to London alone and completely changing my life.
My eldest daughter, Jessica, was about 18 years old when she got her first seasonal job at Christmas.
She started working as a sales assistant in clothing shops to earn some extra money. This is quite common among young, attractive girls in Brazil during the holiday season. The Christmas period boosts sales for shops, and working during this time allows them to earn additional income.
If I remember correctly, Jessica worked at a Havaianas franchise shop, the leading brand of Brazilian flip-flops and a must-have for a cheap, easy, not-so-bad-or-boring Christmas present. I don’t know exactly how well she did. Still, in previous years, she completed a trainee work experience placement, which her university requires of psychology students in their final two years.
Jessica worked at another, more sophisticated clothing shop before going to Miami and Orlando with Mario for her 21st birthday. After three years of seasonal Christmas work, she found her first proper job as a trainee at a job agency, and a little after, a major Brazilian multinational company headhunted her after she graduated.
Any form of honest work is noble and character-building, and that is what I want Yasmin to experience as soon as possible. I want her to feel the importance and satisfaction of earning and receiving her own money.
The discipline to get up and do what you have to do in the name of responsibility, especially when you don’t feel like it, while also understanding the meaning of the words, ‘there is no excuse, excuses don’t work here at your work’, is very important, and especially at a young age, it is character-building.
Earlier this year, I got angry with Yasmin because I asked her to do something a certain way to avoid problems in the future, but she kept doing it her way, repeatedly, without regard for what I was trying to show and teach her. She showed total disregard for what I was trying to teach her.
What made me even angrier, besides the total disrespect, was that there was always an excuse for her to do whatever she wanted. With work and a boss breathing down her neck, there is usually one way: either their way or the way out.
As her father, I knew it was clear that my requests, orders, demands, or even my education carried little weight with her. I also knew that, with a job, she would have to learn the meaning of real responsibility quickly and that excuses have no real power or significance in the real world and the workplace.
Yasmin had sent me the draft of her CV. I was quite impressed with what she had done. It was much better than I had expected. I had some minor observations I wanted to discuss with her. We discussed them. She agreed with my observations, and it was arranged for her to send me a revised copy this week.
I will then take it to a bureau or a photocopying shop and have 50 or 100 copies made for her to distribute at shops in the shopping centres near her home. It is important for a young, beautiful girl who has her whole life ahead of her and is beginning her professional life at the right age, especially during the upcoming Christmas period.
Be kind and be happy, and if you can’t be happy, still be kind, but not naïve!
In bed by 10 p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
