The professional version of romantic "cushioning": keeping your options warm — updating your CV, taking recruiter calls, freelancing on the side, nurturing a network — while still employed full-time, so that if your current job collapses you have a soft landing already in motion.
Add your own interpretation of "Career Cushioning".
Office-speak decoded — the corporate euphemisms, Agile rituals, and HR buzzwords you'll hear in every standup, retro, and performance review.
See all Corporate & Work slang on Slangora.
Browse all slang words starting with C.
(slang, neologism, social media) The act or practice of someone entertaining other potential romantic options while in a committed relationship.
Keeping a few casual connections warm while you're in a committed relationship, in case it falls apart and you need someone to "cushion" the blow. Morally ambiguous; more common than people admit. Often discussed in anonymous Reddit posts.
Material used to cushion something.
(slang, humorous) body fat or musculature on the buttocks area, seen as making someone (usually a woman) more buoyant and allowing more comfort, "cushion," during intercourse than bony hips would, and also providing more bounce.
The professional version of romantic "cushioning": keeping your options warm — updating your CV, taking recruiter calls, freelancing on the side, nurturing a network — while still employed full-time, so that if your current job collapses you have a soft landing already in motion. The term spread through HR and LinkedIn commentary in 2022–23 against a backdrop of tech layoffs, hiring freezes and recession headlines, when even high-performers stopped trusting their employers to give them notice. Career cushioning is generally framed as a rational defensive move rather than disloyalty, and overlaps heavily with the rise of side hustles and "polyworking".
After the second round of layoffs hit my team, I started career cushioning by quietly taking every recruiter call that came in.