Wendy Hurst

Welcome to Ship It Anyway, the show from HeroDevs that's part game show and part conversation. Two guests will compete in a series of games about real tech quirks, fails, and features with hot takes in between about those times in life when things might not be perfect, but sometimes you just have to ship them anyway. I'm your host, Wendy Hurst. 

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Today I've invited two guests from HeroDevs to compete for the winning title. In one corner we have Angela Robertson, who joins us from New Jersey today.

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She's a billing operations specialist at HeroDevs with a background that spans paralegal work, health and welfare, and all things account receivable. She brings a calm, methodical presence to the fast moving world of tech. She's also an unofficial certified beekeeper, unofficial only because she's never turned in the paperwork, but the bees don't seem to mind. Welcome to the show, Angela.

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Angela Robertson

Hi Wendy, how are you? Thanks for having me.

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Wendy Hurst

In the other corner we have Jessica Hart, who also joins us from New Jersey. She's an operations specialist at HeroDevs with a wealth of experience across nonprofit and mission-driven organizations. She brings a thoughtful, people-first approach to everything from onboarding to operations and somehow makes structure feel like support instead of red tape.

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If you've ever felt like things just magically worked behind the scenes, odds are that Jessica had something to do with it. Welcome to the show, Jessica.

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Jessyca Hart

Hey Wendy.

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Wendy Hurst

All right, we're gonna start with a very easy game to play. This game doesn't even have any winners. It's just a fun way to get to know you a little bit. I will say two things and you just say which one you prefer. Angela, I'm gonna do yours first. Are you ready?

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Angela Robertson

I'm so ready.

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Wendy Hurst

Color-coded calendar or Wild West scheduling?

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Angela Robertson

Color-coded. I'd be lost without my color code.

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Wendy Hurst

Sticky notes or to-do app?

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Angela Robertson

I'm not gonna lie, I don't use to-do apps, but I have sticky notes everywhere. So we're gonna say color-coded sticky notes. Yes.

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Wendy Hurst

Blending the two together. had a feeling. had a feeling it was sticky notes. I love sticky notes.

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Inbox zero or inbox chaos?

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Angela Robertson

Inbox zero.

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Wendy Hurst

Being early or just on time.

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Angela Robertson

Just on time, if not-ish.

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Wendy Hurst

You get there when you get there. Last one, recurring meeting or recurring reminder?

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Angela Robertson

When I get there. Recurring reminder. Hopefully I don't have one going off, because it'll just continuously. I have one for like every five minutes until I remember to like turn them off. Yes. Exactly.

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Wendy Hurst

I like that too. I'm a snoozer. I don't turn it off till I'm like at the thing that I was planning to go to. Yes.

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Over to you, Jessica.

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This word has always been a struggle for me and I've been in project management for like 14 years. Kan-BAHN (or Kan-BAN) or Scrum?

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Jessyca Hart

Scrum. Scrum for sure. Plus it just sounds better.

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Wendy Hurst

Okay. Meeting that could have been an email or email that should have been a meeting?

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Jessyca Hart

Meeting that could have been an email for sure. But then again, I love like little check-ins and usually it turns into a chat.

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Wendy Hurst

Gantt charts or Post-it notes?

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Jessyca Hart

Post it notes.

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Wendy Hurst

Quarterly planning or daily standup?

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Jessyca Hart

Daily standups. I love touch points.

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Wendy Hurst

Me too. I love, I love a good standup. Career ladder or jungle gym?

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Jessyca Hart

Jungle Gym, because things don't always go as planned and you become interested in different things in life and it's not always going straight up. A little bit of Sandpit too, or Sandbox, and then we got back up.

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Wendy Hurst

Okay, I like it. Well, it's fun. A little quick way to get to know you. Thanks for playing. So now I'd to talk a little bit about your work experience. Tell me a little bit about what you did before you came to HeroDevs.

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Jessyca Hart

Absolutely.

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I initially was a part of a nonprofit that focused on affordable housing and community development. I found it very interesting to bring people into this field, and I used to recruit for college students that wanted to be a part of community development.

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I really like the aspect of recruiting and just like getting folks to where they wanted to be. And I joined another organization that focused on DEI recruitment. They created a platform that helped folks gain access to roles that they normally wouldn't necessarily have had. Something like a LinkedIn, but more focused to Latinx, Native American and Black people.

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So there I focused mainly on HR, which really got my wheels turning and loving processes and creating, just following the rules, I guess you can say. I'm a big rule follower with a little bit of rule worm. after that, going back to the sand pit thing, I had a year off, I got laid off unfortunately, but I made it back up to the, we're back in the jungle gym now, where I came to HeroDevs.

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Wendy Hurst

Great! You mentioned that you have a degree in sustainability. Tell me more about that.

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Jessyca Hart

Yes, so I mainly focused on policy. So I wanted to be around my rule loving self, just looking at ways that we can protect the things that I mean, need protection in terms of natural resources and making sure of clean energy and just learning how exactly to speak with legislators in order to make those things happen, advocate on the behalf of things that can't advocate for themselves. And yeah, it was definitely a great experience throughout college when I could be taking samples in the woods. I actually went to a school in New Jersey in the Pine Barrens.

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So we would be doing that one class, but then my next class, I would be talking about like the economics of the environment. So it was a very well-rounded education. I still use kind of principles of it today, but no, I'm not currently in the woods like I thought I would be.

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Wendy Hurst

That's a great way to bring it full circle. How about you Angela? Tell me a little bit about what you did before you came to HeroDevs.

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Angela Robertson

I started off as a benefits administrator. I worked my way up to being a supervisor and I thought that that was the role that I wanted to go. However, realizing that there was a cap, I thought I wanted to do a little bit more with my job. I felt like there wasn't a lot of room to pivot and do different things with it. So I kind of was exploring different avenues and you know.

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jobs and so actually moving made me fall into the legal because I actually worked as a temp in a law firm and from there I was hired on as a paralegal and realized how much I actually loved the law even though I tried to avoid it as much as possible because my mother is a paralegal as is my sister and like several of my cousins and aunts and I was like that's not what I want to do it's boring.

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I realized that it's actually very interesting and me being also a lover of rules, there are a lot of them in the law. And so that's kind of the direction that I'm going in now. And I'm actually working towards my paralegal associates degree. And I'm going to decide what I want to do after that. Getting into HeroDevs I love it here. Once I started here, actually went through a lot of different departments, kind of like touching base with different things. And I'm landed in billing operations specialist, and I didn't think I'd love it as much as I do.

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Wendy Hurst

If you could go back in time and change one decision in your career that might help you get where you want to go faster, what would you change?

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Angela Robertson

I would have started sooner. Like I said, I kind of decided that I didn't want to do legal and I kind of went away from it. my family continuously told me like, this is what you'll love. This like aligns with a lot of the things that you're interested in. And I just dismissed, I was young and dumb. And I really wish, I feel like I would have been a lot further had I started sooner.

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Wendy Hurst

Yeah. What about you, Jessica? Anything come to mind?

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Jessyca Hart

Switching jobs is like a scary thing, especially when like, I don't know, I never really thought past college too much or I had an idea, but nothing that like I actually saw coming to fruition. So if anything, just like listening to my own self and like once I kind of found like what I was interested at. And knowing that the organization that I was at, there was no way up to get to that point and needing to change to another position or another organization, I should have done it a little bit sooner than I did. I really liked the people that I worked with and they just made it fun. So I stayed for them. I mean, I did learn a lot, but I mean, you gotta kind of in some ways just, you gotta do it for you at the end of the day.

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Wendy Hurst

Yeah, I think if someone asked me this question, I would probably suggest to my younger self to be willing to keep more options open. I'm an all-in kind of person, especially when I was younger. I was just like, I wanted to be a dolphin trainer when I was 12. Like that was my dream. That was my destiny. I didn't even know how to swim very well.

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Angela Robertson

I love it.

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Wendy Hurst

I live in Utah, there's no water here. What dolphins am I gonna train? I was like, this is it. That's what I wanna do with my life. Of course that changed. it didn't have a clear path forward for me in terms of a career. 

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So I was like, you know what? I finally found it. I'm gonna be a sign language interpreter. This is it. What else is there? I love helping people communicate. I'm really good at it. I went all in on it in high school, right? I did all of the classes that I could take. I went to college for that. 

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And after my first year, I hit a wall and realized that that doesn't wasn't for me. And I was like, well, what else is there? I didn't spend time kind of diversifying my options very well. And so I dropped out of school and I took a job in data services because I'm a fast typer.

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Angela Robertson

I love that. I love it.

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Wendy Hurst

And that's what set me on the journey to tech. I love to break things. I love technology. So I got really familiar with the application that the company that I worked for used and designed in-house. I became a power user. And because of that, that's how I got my first job in tech. I had no tech experience. I had no training in it. I have a degree in general studies. The only thing you can do with that is transfer. It's not gonna get me a career somewhere. But in a way it kind of did. No one really asked me what my certification was. It was more like, what do you know? What are you comfortable with? What's your experience like? And it just fit for me.

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Angela Robertson

Right.

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Wendy Hurst

So I got my start in QA engineering and kind of worked my way through. So if I could give like, go back in time and change one decision, I'd just be like, try more things. Don't lock in so much.

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Jessyca Hart

I’m practically a beekeeper. And we, we one time were talking about like, we should just get our CDLs. That'd be so cool to drive really big trucks.

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Wendy Hurst

Yeah, see the country. There you go.

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Jessyca Hart

Exactly.

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Wendy Hurst

That brings me to a different question, which I feel like I already know Angela's answer, but I'm really excited to kind of drill down a little more into it. What's an industry or skill outside your field that you would love to master?

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Angela Robertson

I do this, I do that. I was like, yeah, I'm also a beekeeper can't sit still. So I'm always into something else. And just as quickly as I'm learning that, I'm picking something else up. But I'm kind of like the Jack of all trades, master of none and I always kind of wish that there was like this one thing that I was like the master of. Like you can come to me and I know like everything about it. And I actually kind of envy that about like a lot of people that kind of hone in. Like they find what it is that they're interested in. They find their niche and they like drill into it or dive like fully into it. Because I feel like I know, as I always say, I know a lot, a little bit about a lot, so to speak.

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And so I don't know, as far as like one thing that I'd like to master, I don't even know what I'd answer for that. It's too many things, all the things.

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Wendy Hurst

Too many things. All the things. I'm with you. I'm with you. I have a lot of hobbies.

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Jessyca Hart

Not necessarily unrealistic, but I would love to be the next Caesar like Milan. Like I love dogs. I dog sit a lot. I am not saying I'm an expert in like dog behavior, but I would love to be. So it's just like, I'm not necessarily silly, but like if I could just do anything and get a certification, that's probably something I'd be really in like wanting to do.

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Jessyca Hart

I guess to think of the question in regards to my own career now, I want to become better at systems.

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Wendy Hurst

What kind of systems?

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Jessyca Hart

Like I'm currently endeavoring on using Asana a bit more in my work. eventually I would love to be like a power user of it. Like can create a workflow like no other and then get experience in other things that can help me propel my career. And a lot of it is within the platforms that companies use to help optimize their work and just be as efficient as possible. I feel like that's a theme for me right now is efficiency. That's like more boring, realistic, something I'm actually working on. But yeah, totally a dog trainer for sure.

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Wendy Hurst

I don't think it's boring at all. I love jumping into some good systems and just, I don't know.

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Angela Robertson

I was gonna say, I don't find that boring at all. Absolutely.

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Jessyca Hart

I feel like I'm talking to the wrong people. Like this is the industry for that too. But I mean for the other folks, I guess, maybe not.

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Wendy Hurst

It depends. I feel like in the tech world, it doesn't matter what system you mention or what application you say, somebody out there is gonna get really excited and somebody out there is gonna roll their eyes. They are. I'm sure that a listener just now heard the word Asana and there were a lot of different responses inside.

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Jessyca Hart

I used to love monday.com until I came here and started using Asana. yeah, it's a bit different. mean, in some ways, they're all kind of the same, but different.

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Wendy Hurst

Some things do better than others. I've tried a lot. I've worked with a lot of different applications, not just at companies that I've worked for, but back when I used to work in consulting, you use the system that the company uses that you're consulting for. 

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So Angela, you're the Billing Operations Specialist at HeroDevs. What's one misconception people might have about your job?

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Angela Robertson

The amount of time it takes to invoice or to do vendor onboarding and things of that nature. I think when people say like something gets sent to me and I have to just like fill out this thing online to get the vendor onboarding things so we can get paid like that's quick. 

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Sometimes they can take hours trying to figure out how to get logged in, to figure out how we need to upload certain information, answering questions. Some of the questions that I have to answer don't even pertain to me. In my department, have to then pass it on to another department to have it completed. And like I said, that can take some days sometimes, depending on what the other department's queue is. But then there's also issues where there may be some type of a technical issue. That's when it can really take some time. Trying to troubleshoot, trying to reach out to support, you know, sending emails, going back and forth. A lot of the companies don't have like a phone number. I'm still very old school where I like to pick up a phone and like get me somebody and, you know, talk to somebody on the phone, but everything is, you know, via email. So it's time consuming.

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Wendy Hurst

What's something that you wish people knew about your job?

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Jessyca Hart

That it's very broad, or at least in my experience. And I do appreciate that because I like to touch many things. I don't want to be in any way siloed. I like to work on multiple projects. But one day you can be like just heavy into spreadsheets. Other days it's speaking with your employees or the employees of your company, finding ways to help them as best as you can. Other days, it's just, I'm finding what I can do to be most helpful. I'm kind of just like creating work for myself. So it's just very broad. But it fits under like an umbrella of just propelling the company forward and helping folks be the best that they can at the work that they do.

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Wendy Hurst

We're gonna take a quick word about what we do over to me.

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[HeroDevs Ad]

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And back to me! Welcome back to Ship It Anyway. Our next game is called What Could Go Wrong?

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Processes are supposed to make things run smoothly, but sometimes they're like duct tape or a leaky pipe instead. And when short-term solutions are used for long-term problems, it's easy to skip the part where someone stops to ask, what could go wrong? This game is about the unexpected results of design decisions.

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I will present a real world tech situation that went awry and each contestant will guess which one of the results actually happened. Each correct answer earns one point. Jessica, you get to go first.

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Here we go. Number one, an autonomous vehicle company began testing its robo-taxis on public roads. What unexpected issue did they encounter? Was it A, the vehicles, the vehicles, that's not even a word. Was it A, the vehicles refused to stop at red lights? B, the cars would stall in the middle of streets blocking traffic? Or C, the vehicles exceeded speed limits in school zones?

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Jessyca Hart

I'm gonna say B.

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Wendy Hurst

The answer is B, the cars would stall in the middle of the street. In 2023, Cruze's autonomous vehicles in San Francisco experienced situations where they became immobilized and obstructed traffic. Question number two. A state invested heavily in hydrogen fueling stations to promote clean energy vehicles. What problem arose with this initiative? Was it A, the stations were incompatible with most hydrogen vehicles?

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Jessyca Hart

Fantastic.

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Wendy Hurst

Can imagine? B. A supplier provided faulty equipment leading to station closures. C. The hydrogen fuel was found to be environmentally harmful.

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the incompatible with most hydrogen vehicles? Incorrect. The answer was B, a supplier provided faulty equipment. It's a tricky one.

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Jessyca Hart

I had a feeling. I didn't think that it was gonna be another B and I wanted it to diversify.

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Wendy Hurst

I know. Thinking like a true test taker.

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Jessyca Hart

Exactly.

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Angela Robertson

Right.

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Jessyca Hart

Yes!

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Wendy Hurst

This one also happened in California. Hydrogen fueling stations supplied by Norwegian company Nel... Assa? I don't know how to pronounce it. I'm not Norwegian. All due respect, I apologize for saying the name wrong. They just faced operational issues and it shut down lots of their stuff. All right. You've got one point. 

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Angela. Over to you. Are you ready?

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Angela Robertson

I'm ready.

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Wendy Hurst

Question number one. Researchers studied how disinformation could impact energy consumption. What did they find? Was it A, disinformation had no measurable effect on energy usage? B, fake discount notifications could lead to synchronized energy use and potential blackouts? Or C, consumers became more skeptical and reduced energy consumption overall?

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Angela Robertson

C.

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Wendy Hurst

Incorrect. The answer is B, fake discount notifications can lead to synchronized energies. I didn't plan it this way, I promise. Question number two. A major smartphone manufacturer released a new model that faced critical issues. What happened? Was it A, the phone software deleted user data unexpectedly? B,

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Angela Robertson

I had a feeling it was B. But I was like, no, let's just have hope for the people that they... That's so funny.

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Wendy Hurst

The device's batteries overheated and caught fire, or C, the screen display malfunctioned in high temperatures.

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Angela Robertson

Sounds like all things that have happened to my phone. Let's see.

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Wendy Hurst

I’ll give you a hint. It's from 2016. (laughs)

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Angela Robertson

I wanna say... Is it C?

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Wendy Hurst

Incorrect. The answer was B. The device's batteries overheated.

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Angela Robertson

It's B, isn't it? I was gonna say B, I was thinking it's not possible. That it could be B again. I don't wanna say B, and I knew it was B. Oh man. It's okay.

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Jessyca Hart

You don't want to think!

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Wendy Hurst

Sorry. In 2016, it was Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 that was recalled due to battery defects that caused fire. I remember it too.

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Angela Robertson

I remember that. I remember that. And I had a feeling that was it. But then I also know my iPhone, like, decides it doesn't want to work when it gets really hot. like, I put it up high. Oh.

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Wendy Hurst

That's right. So for this round, Jessica with one point is the winner. She gets to go first in our next game. 

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We've talked a lot about what you do and how you do it. But now I want to talk about what you think it takes to do well when things get messy, whether it's managing teams or fixing a process or just keeping your cool when everyone's looking to you for answers. I want to talk about what it takes to be the calm in the chaos.

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What do you think makes someone good at keeping operations glued together?

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Angela Robertson

Communication, I think, is one. And I think that that's one of the reasons why we're so good in the operations team is that I think we have a really good amount of communication. If I have questions or if I'm uncertain, I don't feel uncomfortable going to someone and saying, hey, I have a question. if you have a lack of communication, it kind of falls apart.

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Wendy Hurst

What do you think, Jessica?

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Jessyca Hart

I believe a bit of it is also like organization or like whose role is it to take on this, like not to have too many like cooks in the kitchen. It's like, all right, well, even though we're your team or we are a team. like, this is your responsibility. This is your responsibility. If you need to back up this person on the team, you know the process they follow, just in case you need to step in. So if goodness forbid, or not even, if someone's on vacation, it's just seamless that we're able to pick up what they need us to cover because we're more than aware of how to follow said process or folks know that they can reach out to any one of us on the team when someone else is absent.

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Wendy Hurst

Hmm, I like that. I think maybe one more I would put in there is what you talked about earlier, Jessica, which is system awareness. Even if you're not an admin of all of the applications, you don't know like every single detail of every system that you have at your disposal. Knowing what your options are, I think helps plan your process or plan out something that you want to accomplish by thinking of as many ways that it can work for everybody as possible.

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How do you help other people stay calm when sometimes things are running off track?

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Jessyca Hart

Just being confident that everything's gonna be okay. That, mean, if things definitely get difficult that like we're all here as a team working on it and trying to figure out the solutions around the problem.

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Wendy Hurst

What do think Angela?

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Angela Robertson

I agree with that and even just being sounding boards for people. Sometimes it may just require like someone just to hear you out because I think out loud and sometimes I need to be able to just say it to somebody and then it gets my wheels turning.

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Wendy Hurst

It does help. There's a concept in tech that I didn't learn about until I came to HeroDevs called rubber ducking. And when someone said it to me the first time, I had to look it up to make sure that it was like HR appropriate. that's why there's ducks back here. The concept of rubber ducking is that you can solve your own problem by talking to an inanimate object, talking through your problem.

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Jessyca Hart

Totally.

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Wendy Hurst

You can find solutions that maybe you couldn't find when you were just thinking about it in your mind. And doesn't have to be rubber duck or an inanimate object. It can be a person. I talk to people who don't know what I'm talking about all the time, just with their permission as a way to, to work through a problem, whether it's a presentation I'm working on for a client or something that's internal, or I'm trying to solve an actual problem with our CRM or I'm struggling with another application or whatever it is, talking to someone who has no idea what I'm talking about can actually be really helpful.

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Angela Robertson

I have to get me rubber dubs.

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Wendy Hurst

Let's shift on… How do you stay grounded when you're juggling so many tasks and people and last minute fires?

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Jessyca Hart

Recently, it's how I start my day. I've been taking a nice morning walk when the weather permits. That's been amazing. Also helps me to gain those steps needed to win this challenge for a while. But I could have been doing more, but I'm proud of what I've already accomplished. But I don't know. It's just that those moments in the morning.

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I get in front of my computer and just take time to clear my head.

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Wendy Hurst

Good idea. What about you, Angela? How do you stay grounded when you're juggling so much stuff?

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Angela Robertson

I have to get all my kids off to school, but I always try to make sure that I get them off with enough time that I just have like 30 minutes to myself. And that's my 30 minutes. And I do whatever I need to do in that 30 minutes if it means that I need to like straighten up my house really fast because I can't think well in clutter.

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And then I also reset my desk. So I will come in here and if I have like coffee cups, leftover water bottles, that's not always the case. I don't drink enough water, but water bottles. If I have to organize my post-its that I've written throughout the day, if I have to like move a plate or if I need to like, if I have papers, because I'm always writing like my little to-do lists or things that I need to do. So I'll reset my desk before I log into work. And that kind of helps me get grounded because it lets me just like…I'm getting like a clear space.

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Wendy Hurst

How do you handle being the person that everyone relies on without burning out?

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Angela Robertson

I don't go in thinking like, “I'm gonna do all my emails and all my invoices that I'm gonna get done today and all my collections, I'm gonna have everything done.” It's like, “No, this is what I can accomplish today.” And I make my list and I said, I'm gonna touch on these things today and whatever I don't get to today, I get to tomorrow. When I have people coming in, like I need this done, I need this done, great. I'll take care of that for you. Take care of that for you, but this is the timeframe that I'll be getting it back to you.

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Jessyca Hart

I definitely agree with that. And actually need to be better about it, because I'll end up being like, yeah, I can get right on this. And then realizing that I maybe didn't think about how much exactly that like time is going to take to get this action taken care of. It sounded so simple when the person was saying it, but as I'm like, problem solving it, it's like, Whoa, this has turned into something even greater.

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Wendy Hurst

Sometimes it's in my nature to worry that I'm gonna forget it. So if I don't do it right now, I will forget to do this thing and it's gonna fall through the cracks. And that's definitely not what I want.

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I always have two notes that are going at all times, whether it's at work or anywhere else. Where I'll be like taking the notes of the things and like, no, I need to make sure that I start the laundry. I just make a quick like to-do list and it gets out of my mind on the paper in a way that satisfies my brain. I'm not gonna forget it because I wrote it down and now I can concentrate on the thing that matters right now.

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When everything feels urgent, how do you decide what really matters?

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Angela Robertson

I try to decipher, it really urgent? If it's something that's going to disrupt the flow of something else happening, I will try to jump on that first. If it's something that's like, can wait, it's not gonna mess anything up, then it's second level urgency.

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Jessyca Hart

Mine, the way I prioritize is basically like if someone's handing me something, I ask them like, well, what is the timeline that you think? I want to set expectations, we want to make sure we have boundaries.

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Wendy Hurst

Now that we've talked about what y'all know best, we're ready to play our final game of the show called Not My Job.

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I'm gonna ask you two questions that have nothing to do with your job or in the real world or anything that we have talked about today and everything to do with what you know about ancient office tools.

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Jessyca Hart

I worked in an office once.

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Wendy Hurst

Right? Remember the good old days?

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Angela Robertson

Multi-line phones and all that good stuff.

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Jessyca Hart

Remember that commute?

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Wendy Hurst

Jessica, as your reward for being the leader you get to go first. Are you ready?

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Jessyca Hart

Sounds good.

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Wendy Hurst

Okay, question number one. What writing instrument did ancient Egyptian scribes commonly use in place of pens? Was it A, a feather quill, B, a stylus made of bronze, or C, a reed brush?

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Jessyca Hart

I'll say Reed Brush. We had the Nile. Papyrus was also what they wrote on probably.

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Wendy Hurst

That is correct! Egyptian scribes used cut reeds dipped in ink to write on papyrus. The reed brush was their version of a ballpoint pen. It was just a lot messier.

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Question number two, before paper was common, what material did ancient Romans use for quick note taking? Was it A, bark and charcoal, B, wax tablets and a stylus, or C, pieces of linen soaked in ink?

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Jessyca Hart

Wax tablet.

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Wendy Hurst

That is correct!

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Jessyca Hart

Did I also tell you I'm good at trivia?

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Wendy Hurst

(laughs) Romans used wooden tablets coated in wax. They would inscribe notes with a stylus and later smooth out the wax to reuse it like an old whiteboard.

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Well done, two for two. You have a total of three right now. Angela, you're up next. Question number one. Which of these was the ancient version of delete or undo in a Roman office? Was it A, a small flame used to burn parchment, B, the flat end of a stylus, or C, a damp sponge carried on the belt?

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Angela Robertson

End of the stylus? Is it B? I went with B!

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Wendy Hurst

That is correct! Stylists had a pointed end for writing and a flat end for smoothing the wax, which would erase the message like Control Z Roman edition like that. 

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Question number two in medieval scriptoria What tool did scribes use to keep their writing straight on unlined parchment? Was it a a chalk ruler B a hand cut stencil or C a piece of lead or stylus for scoring lines?

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The answer is Z! A piece of lead or stylus for scoring lines. Scribes would lightly score guidelines using their stylus or a piece of lead to keep their writing tidy.

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Jessyca Hart

We did it!

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Wendy Hurst

That's all the questions. And the winner today, Jessica has three, Angela has two. Jessica is the winner. Yay! (claps)

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That's all for this episode of Ship It Anyway. Big thanks to Angela and Jessica for playing along and sharing their insights. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find more entertaining tech content from HeroDevs on LinkedIn, X.com, YouTube, and anywhere podcasts are available. 

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We'll see you next time. Goodbye!