You are always the last to know your getting the boot.

Only if you can't recognize the potential signs - actions against other employees, specific verbiage, body language of supervisors, etc.

Having been on both sides of the coin, letting someone go is very rarely a steady build up or a snap decision. Usually several waves of issues related to performance or performance :salary ratios - then a sudden business issue that requires removing those that happen to be at a certain level of the wave. The game is to understand what's going on around you, and stay on the downside of the curve as much as possible.

It's why so many employees feel a need to play the perception game - taking credit for other people's work and brown-nosing with superiors. And unfortunately, most supervisors are so busy doing these same things that they are completely unaware of who's really responsible for specific work being done.