Although the average shot girl prides herself on sex appeal, shot girls in the Thibodaux area are breaking stereotypical barriers by keeping it classy rather than trashy.
    Blair Albarez, communicative disorders sophomore from Port Allen, began working as a shot girl last year at Last Call in downtown Thibodaux after one of her sorority sisters convinced her to apply for the job.
    Sherana Kerry, dietetics senior from Harvey, began working as a shot girl in July as a summer job.
    Since then, they have been serving $3 shots weekly at Last Call, sometimes going through 300 shots in a night. Crowd favorites include Jaeger, Hot Sex, Goldschlaugger, Tequila Rose and Sex on the Beach shots.
    Kerry said that as shot girls, they must arrive to work with a positive attitude in order to keep the fun atmosphere alive.
    “You can’t really go to work with an ‘I don’t feel like going to work’ attitude,” Kerry said. “This is a job where you always have to be friendly regardless of how you feel. You always have to interact with the people.”
    Unlike the shot girls on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Albarez said that shot girls at Last Call have specific rules they must follow if they would like to keep their jobs safe.
    “If we take shots or do anything like that, we can get in a lot of trouble,” Albarez explained. “We probably would get fired if we took shots. They are kind of nasty on Bourbon. We have to walk around. We can’t just stand there. We can’t drink and we can’t serve underage [drinkers]. “
    Kerry said that their attire is more “conservative” than the shot girls working on Bourbon Street.
    “We wear a nice shirt, khakis and whatever shoes are the most comfortable,” Kerry explained. “They’re totally different as far as their image.”
    While Albarez and Kerry are not the stereotypical shot girls, they still come in contact with something that even the classiest girls cannot get rid of:  ridiculous requests. Many people think a shot girl’s job consists of taking shots with customers and dancing on tabletops.
    “Some drunk guys assume that we do our job like they do on Bourbon Street, but we don’t,” Albarez said. “I have been asked to do a lot of things that the girls on Bourbon do.”
    Sometimes when the men get too aggressive, the girls have to call for the back up.
    “We have a lot of security at Last Call,” Kerry explained. “Whenever we feel uncomfortable with the guys we just signal security to get them out of our way or they escort them out of the club.”
    Besides the stereotypes, the girls also have to deal with countless courtship requests throughout their shifts on a weekly basis.
    “I have been asked what time I get off of work,” Albarez said. “I’ve been asked to go to pool parties. I have been asked to go out on a date right after I leave, which would be at 2:00 a.m.  There are really creepy guys then there are guys that seriously want to take you out on a date, but I’m just like ‘no.'”
    Along with constant pick-up lines and late-night dinner date offers, Albarez and Kerry also encounter the stereotypical drunken club-goers.
    “You have the crazy people that try to talk to you, then you just have the really drunk people that want to have a conversation with you,” Albarez said. “That’s probably the funniest part of my job is trying to walk away from conversations that won’t end.”
    During the day, these girls lead busy lives as active sorority members. Albarez can be spotted wearing her Phi Mu paraphernalia, while Kerry sports her letters of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. around campus.  Albarez also works as a waitress and hostess at Chili’s in Thibodaux, while Kerry is an active member of Pi Sigma Epsilon business fraternity and a student assistant in Calecas Hall.
    Both Albarez and Kerry said that their late night work schedules do not effect their class schedules. Though juggling all of these tasks are hard for the girls, they both find a way to manage their busy schedules accordingly.
    Though Albarez said she wishes college students would be a little more generous with the tips, the girls said there is not anything else they would change about their job.
    “It pays the bills,” Albarez said. “It’s actually very good money for the short amount of time. I can make well over $100 in a night and I will start working around 11:30, 12:00, so that’s not bad.”
    “It’s a job that never gets boring, so I wouldn’t change anything about it,” Kerry said.