It’s a bit more ironic than that —- at least according to to Wikipedia, they drew lots (I.e randomly) for the individual who was killed.
Layoffs
I get the feeling that this is more-or-less how stack ranking actually tends to pan out.
More like, managers playing favorites
The toxic reason to never miss unpaid happy hours!
I think the reasoning behind decimation was that it was supposed to be an equivalent bloodbath defeat. Historically, a rout typically resulted in about 10% casualties. Decimation reduced the calculus of a Roman soldier to 'stay in the fight, and risk a 10% chance of death' versus 'run, and risk a 10% chance of being killed at random by your tentmates'.
Seems like the low performers would have been taken care of already from the battle.
Not necessarily. Cowardice is a viable individual survival strategy.
Where would a Roman run? To somewhere in Gaul?
"Ave! Auxilium requiro."
"Oxnychz navar werun dosh? [laughs in extinct language]"
"Quid?"
In that kind of setting I imagine the low performers would sometimes be likeliest to survive, if they broke rank to run away. I imagine the lots would come out if everyone gave an honest effort.
That's not how the legions worked. The men assembled three ranks deep. The first rank was comprised of those with middling experience, who had seen combat before. The rear rank was the senior veterans. The cherries with no experience went in the middle, both to be reassured by the E4 mafia laying skunion in the front rank, and to be prodded on by the very experienced guys behind them.