Reply #21: Why they're called pink slips [View All]

[jmowreader]

Big heartless corporations in the days before computers generally printed their HR paperwork on three-part paper. Three-part paper, whether it be carbon-required or carbonless, comes in three colors: the top one's white, then yellow and finally pink. (When you buy a box of it to print forms on, it comes stacked that way.)

In these same big heartless corporations, when they need to dismiss a lot of people at once, they write up the termination notices and stick them in the affected employees' pay envelopes. The top one goes to payroll, the middle one in the employee's file and the bottom one, which is pink, goes in the pay envelope.