I knew it a couple of months before it happened. it didn't take a genius to figure it out. A few key things were shifted away from me with no good explanation as to why, I was consulted less on things that I would have been heavily involved in before, etc. I found out the date from this board (this was for the May 15th layoff) and I was really excited, I had moved on mentally already since I was 100% sure but I didn't get my call from my department head until a little later in the day and I was actually panicking that I was wrong and I wasn't on the list. I
finally got the call, walked in the office, made it clear I already knew in order to move it along and then I went in a separate room with HR to review my package. I was so sure I had already taken home almost everything personal from my desk so if it hadn't happened, it would have been kind of weird. I took a couple of months off which I really enjoyed and then got on the job search and found one a little earlier than I intended.