u/ZuVieleNamen

So I'm an IP analyst with 4 certs and 3 years experience. I was brought on as a contract analyst and hired on as a FTE once my contract was up. I have done 2 implementations and grown a LOT and legitimately feel like I am an asset and can work rather independently on issues and have a lot of collaborative experience.

My organization pays pretty well for the area as a FTE and I make about 90k a year but we are a small system with no defined team structure and only minimal pay raises. We also won't be having anymore roll outs in the foreseeable future just upgrades. The only benefits I utilize from my job are company match retirement contributions, and PTO, my wife carries all the health related stuff.

I feel like I'm at the point where I should either look for a better remote position that is a FTE position and a pay raise or do consulting work. I really like being really busy and feeling like I have a lot of things to do and right now it feels slow and I am like competing for tickets. I am having a hard time finding FTE fully remote positions it seems, I have applied to like 8 and interviewed for one and I am still waiting to hear back so who knows. But I get like 3 to 4 messages a day it seems on indeed and linkedin for consulting work.

Is this like a smoke screen and not really that many jobs out there? My biggest concern is having difficulty finding contracts and doing this long term. Seeing how hard it appears to find FTE remote work it seems like once you do consulting you will need to keep doing it and if you want to transition back to a slower pace FTE position be prepared to look for a while.

I used to have an Ally X when those first came out and had a lot of fun playing it. I sold it to buy a laptop when I enrolled back in some college classes to advance my degree. I have a trip coming up and really wanted to get another handheld and had my heart set on a steam deck. I really ended up only playing steam games on the X and the 7 inch screen felt cramped and I did not actually like the 16:9 ratio.

Obviously a bad time to try and buy a steam deck, and the legion go s seems terribly overpriced new. I see plenty of used steam decks on marketplace but they are selling for about twice the value as well at around 400-500 dollars for the 256gb LCD models. I also would prefer new since I worry about market place electronics if they are all selling for so much.

The go s seems like a decent steam deck alternative running steam OS but at 1k right now for the base is it really worth it? Maybe I should suck it up and just get a base rog ally and save some money. I really only play games on my handheld like Hades 2, wreckfest, and similar games. I don't play many FPS with it since I play those with a gaming PC and prefer keyboard and mouse so the xbox style controllers make me play terribly..