Cutting staff is generally seen as an unpleasant duty, to be carried out when a company?s financial position deteriorates. This article explores the observation that regular culling of staff can be popular with the workforce, because poor performers cause much more damage than is apparent to management. Using queuing theory and simulation, the author demonstrates the severe impact of poor work. In this context, the support for cutting poor staff is logical. The author recommends surveying your software developers to find out if they feel that this would improve their productivity. If so, then there is a popular mandate to implement a "rank and remove" approach.