Pink slips…

Wonder why they are called Pink slips. I was told that in former times in the US when an employee received his pay slip on a pink colour paper with all dues cleared it meant that his services were no longer required by the organisation. One hears so much about them these days… but why pink... A lovely colour associated with lil girls, their toys & joys. Being a father of 2 daughters, I eat pink, sleep pink, and slip on pink occasionally, but fortunately so far for me I’m yet to receive the pink slip. My house is full of Barbie in Pink, Cinderella in Pink, and my daughter’s bedspread & pillows are also in Pink So much so that if I were to receive a pink slip from my boss I guess I would believe it to be a gift for my daughters from the company I worked for all these years. In the good old letter writing days, one used to begin a letter by writing ‘I hope you are in the pink of health’…I just hope & pray people refrain from using this age old jargon while addressing each other these days.

As a person who has spent all my professional life in the heavy industry I always believed that we are grossly underpaid compared to our IT, ITES, and Financial peers. By the way, I sell Pumps for a living. I sell different kinds of centrifugal pumps, but amongst them all, I take great pride in introducing myself as a person who also sells Sewage pumps for a living. One can imagine the ‘eeks’ and the ‘yuks’ I have received at social gatherings graced by Code crackers / creators, Networkers, and Number crunchers. It was a turn off almost at every party / get together. But I used to console myself saying that I have the possibility to earn my bread & butter atleast until the last day of civilised mankind’s existence. How true this has turned out to be….Recent times have made me realise that at times Shit matters…and being in the business of moving them matters even more.