If you want you know if you will be laid off on any given day, check you vacation balance when you arrive in the office...
If your vacation balance has mysteriously been zeroed out that means they cut your final severance check which includes your vacation balance and that check will be arriving at your home by FedEx that morning...
I was informed by my manager (at the time) in early February that I was RIF'd and that early March would be my last day with Oracle. He just called me up out of the blue. Vacation balance had nothing to do it. Received my checks and have been enjoying the summer.
A neighbor (part of storage HW) told me yesterday that he was RIF'd a couple of weeks ago.
I think that depends on your manager and the situation. Managers are instructed to have you escorted from the building. In January some managers were nice enough to give you time to make the rounds and say goodbye. Note that the layoffs in January are be relatively small compared to the numbers I see predicted on this site. If that holds true I expect things to more chaotic this time around.
what the previous poster said is true, but right after that "meeting" you will hand in your badge, computer, and told to pack and leave. your vacation check and final check will be waiting for you courtesy of fedex when you arrive home
Before you get this this point, it is far more likely that a meeting will be scheduled for you with your manager or one of his/her peers. At that point you will know. This will likely be on short notice, like the afternoon before the meeting is scheduled. For the folks in the system group, I expect they will follow a similar process to the RIFs in January, except that I expect more managers will impacted this time, so this time your manager may not be the one conducting the meeting.