Here is all you need to know about Lakes:

Lakes sucks, I mean really sucks. As a captain, you are constantly pulling your hair out over something, whether it is junior-manning, a maintenance issue, schedule changes, being over-worked, and the list goes on and on all for crap pay and crap QOL.

With that being said, I guarantee that if you start at an RJ job on the same day I start at Lakes, you will be my FO at a major or legacy. So does that make it worth it? For some yes, and for others no. You must decide for yourself.

I can tell you from experience that the only thing majors seem to care about is turbine PIC. I was the lowest time guy in my new-hire class at a legacy carrier and I had half the time of the next lowest guy. The common denominator between most of the guys in class was 1500-2000 turbine PIC.

So if you enjoy teaching 8s-on-pylons and think that somehow that is better experience than flying real-world IFR then by all means, stay where you are and leave the job to someone who wants it.

I've got to go now, your sister is coming over.