Posts by Adam Sides
Waypoints Blog: When Two Careers Navigate One Transition
Two Careers. One Transition. Military transition gets talked about like it belongs to one person. The veteran files the paperwork, attends TAP (Transition Assistance Program), and starts the job search. But in most military families, two careers are on the line, and one of them has been quietly absorbing the disruption for years. This one…
Read MoreWaypoints Blog: WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT HIRING VETERANS IS PROBABLY WRONG
There is a version of the veteran hire that lives in the imagination of many employers. Highly regimented. Possibly damaged. Brilliant in the field, but rigid in a conference room. Loyal to a chain of command, not to a team. Hard to manage. Hard to keep. That version is fiction. It is built from secondhand…
Read MoreWaypoints Blog: The Civilian Decoder Ring
You led people through impossible conditions. You made decisions under pressure that most civilians will never face. You built something, fixed something, or kept something running that mattered. A lot. And then you sat down to write a resume, and it all got complicated. How do you explain a job title that civilian HR systems…
Read MoreWaypoints Blog: Recalibrating – How Navy Senior Chief Chris Koenig Is Leading on the Other Side
It was 2020, and COVID had cut Chris Koenig off from everyone back home. He and his family moved to the United Kingdom from Bahrain and four months later, everything locked down. With no time to build any true community, they realized they were tired of starting over. For the first time in his career,…
Read MoreWaypoints Blog: Supporting Your Service Member (Resilient Families Series)
When one person in a family wears the uniform, the whole family serves. And when military life begins to wind down, the transition belongs to everyone. During transition out of service, conversations often revolve around the veteran and what their needs are. But behind every veteran in motion is a family adjusting too. If you’re…
Read MoreWaypoints Blog: What Makes a Workplace Military-Ready?
Walk through any job fair or scroll through career pages and you’ll see the term “veteran-friendly” pop up again and again. The intention is good. The follow-through? Often lacking. Being veteran-friendly means you’re open to hiring those who served. But being military-ready is something else entirely. It’s about creating an environment—a Green Zone—where veterans are…
Read MoreWaypoints Blog: When the Uniform Comes Off
There’s a quiet moment most service members face when they finally take off the uniform for good. It’s not in a ceremony or a handshake line. It’s often alone, when the rhythm of military life fades and a single question begins to echo: Who am I now? That moment is powerful, and it’s completely normal.…
Read MoreAction Cures Fear: 10/6/2025 (Adam Sides)
My first day work day after the military ended with a panic attack. I remember sitting in a new chair, in a new office, surrounded by a kind of silence I didn’t recognize. The tempo was slow, so different from the pace I had lived for decades. For the first time, I had the freedom…
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