Buzz
The Quick Answer: Its true origins remain elusive, but the journey of discovery has been quite fascinating.
The Detailed Answer: Receiving a pink slip typically means you've been let go from your job. It's not an event most people eagerly anticipate. Peter Liebhold, however, is an exception. He's been on a mission to find a pink slip for years and is frustrated by his lack of success.
Liebhold isn't seeking to be fired. Instead, his job requires him to locate a pink slip. He serves as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and chairs the Division of Work and Industry.
Business culture history is his area of expertise. The mystery of the pink slip is something he's been trying to solve for years. Almost everyone knows the term, but the origin remains a puzzle, and it’s unclear whether a real pink slip ever existed.
The common theory is that the phrase emerged when some companies began firing employees by handing them a notice on pink paper. The intention behind the color was to ensure the notice stood out from other paperwork on the desk so it wouldn't be overlooked. The problem, however, is that Liebhold and other researchers haven’t managed to uncover a physical pink slip or find any company that fired people this way. For a while, their only clue was the Oxford English Dictionary, which pointed to the phrase's first recorded usage in a 1915 pulp fiction novel about baseball.
The closest Liebhold came to a breakthrough, he told the Baltimore Sun, was with the Ford Motor Company. While reviewing an obscure history journal, he found a footnote that led him to another article discussing the daily evaluations of Ford's assembly line workers. The article explained that workers had lockers or cubbies for their belongings, and by the end of the day, they'd find a slip of paper in them. A white slip meant the work was satisfactory, but a pink slip signified they weren't welcome back the next day.
Liebhold thought he had finally found the elusive pink slip. However, when he tracked down the source of the story, a California-based management consultant, he discovered it was just an anecdote the consultant had overheard in college and had been repeating ever since. Neither the consultant nor anyone at Ford that Liebhold spoke to could provide any proof the story was true.
Strikeout.
Liebhold's search hasn't been fruitless, though. Along the way, he's uncovered some fascinating pieces of workplace history, such as the first American filing cabinet and some red twill once used by secretaries to bundle documents — believed to be the origin of the term 'red tape.'
