It came from a description of the removal of pieces of pitiful envious and pathetic Dead Wood such as the one posting as @FLtbfsM-yfz, who, unable to come up with any other excuse for his/her inadequacies, incompetence and reason for being on the chopping block, needs to fault his or her business unit as an excuse for their own shortcomings. There are always a handful in every business unit that will be rolling down the plank crying "It's them it's not me" , citing numerous creative instances of racism, intolerance, corruption, blah blah blah, In light of all the minorities employed.
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So we got decimated a few times
Its roman = decima, or 10... Or 10th... If a military cohort failed to deliver or if they rebeled, they would separate them in groups of 10. Each group would draw straws, ine soldier in each group of 10 would end up with the shortest straw, the remainig 9 would use clubs to beat him to death... The process was called decimation...
We kind of have it at play at Chevron right now, it is a bit gentler though...
I'm sure if you ask the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding he'll say it's Greek in origin. Seeing the state of modern Greece he is probably correct.
It comes from the GOM BU - it refers to ethics, honesty and integrity. Or the most closely held form. For example - 'People new to GOM and not from South East Louisiana quickly realized that the common values in most adult environments, such as ethics, honesty and integrity, were quickly decimated in the North Park office.' Hope this helps.
Trying using Bing if Google search doesn't work for you.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decimated?s=t