There's only one important thing that I miss about smoking: A smoke break was an excuse that was tolerated by others, wherein I could go outside and just let my mind wander (daydream) with no particular goal for a short period of time.
Daydreaming should be perfectly acceptable either way, but people seem to think it's weird (concerning, even) when someone spends a bit of time to stand (or sit) around while appearing to be doing nothing at all.
But having a smoke is an activity, and the smoker's participation in this very passive activity assuages the concerns of others.
I don’t smoke but when I would consult in large companies especially I’d always find the smokers and pop by on my way back from a walk.
They are always a good group of people, with a roguish edge as smoking became less acceptable. Usually they are really kind people who represented every part of the the org, and loved some juicy gossip, and I’d learn alot about the informal networks in the company, who the admins were, etc. They would be entertained by my tales of idiocy from a dozen companies. I miss those days!
> informal networks in the company
Not just smokers. The little groups who would go and leave for a walk and coffee. The people who ate lunch together either going out, or together in the kitchen.
These were opportunities to cross the boundaries of your department and role, it was a great excuse to make friends in other groups, and gain insights.
For me the first ones I tried to align with were always in CS and Accounting. The former often had great insight into emerging issues (next weeks "bug", next months "project"). The latter had insight into how the business was really doing, hearing from the people who looked at your "raw" numbers could tell you more than any company meeting where "everything is great".
Working from home killed these, and "zoom" or "slack" are not the same - people are far more guarded when they understand that the company owns that communication channel, that it is recorded/monitored.
I got caught in a big layoff last year that caught me off guard, in part because I was fully remote when I had been in person before. All the random hallway and kitchen conversations where you catch the vibe of what's really happening were gone from what I could see.
People will tolerate a "daily run" (or walk).
I noticed other co-workers going to the gym during the day and realized I could take a break as well. That's when I started to take walking breaks. No one ever said anything.
(I quit smoking when my first daughter was born.)
I see a lot of concern about whether or not people will tolerate some behavior of mine that isn't harmful to anyone. I'm Gen X, so maybe it's how I grew up, but I just dgaf about whether or not my coworkers are okay with my taking a break and going for a walk. I'm not doing it to be mean to them or anything and I don't do it when I'm in the middle of something big and it's definitely nothing personal (I like my coworkers), it just helps me clear my head which is a win when someone works in a job where they need to keep lots of details in their head and switch contexts a lot.
This attitude does lead to some people being miffed because I wasn't available on Teams for 10 minutes, but anything I can do to push back against the idea of my being available to everyone at any time is a win in my book.
I’m aspiring to the gen-X level of DGAF (elder millennial - prone to giving many Fs).
Funny enough. I never smoked, but I often went and hung out in smoking sections outside our work office. I really enjoyed how open smokers were to just random conversations, and the quick 10 minutes of not looking at the screen were typically energizing. Almost like a natural pomodoro work schedule that forced up out of our desks, and then out of our offices.
Socially adroit undergraduates suiting up to exchange dead tree resumes at job fairs in exchange for the URL to online portals can definitely benefit from taking air breaks when/where recruiters do. No need to engage them to unless prompted, it's corporate Switzerland, but there is comfort in recognition on both sides of the booth.
I also appreciate the social break my brain seems to need in order to keep socializing. I'm an introvert but also social, so I love to talk to friends and hang out - but I still need that 5 minutes to just stare off into space and recharge before I jump back into the fray.
I quit smoking about 15 years ago, but still vape - and I remain a huge fan of the easy excuse to step away for 3-5 minutes and just zone out, or change from a large group to a smaller 2-person conversation outside.
Even back when we could smoke in bars, I would still sneak outside from time to time to settle and recharge.
You can get the same effect by going for a walk.
It’s an option, but it’s worth noting that you’re not always idling your brain in quite the same way unless you happen to work somewhere were there are no roads to cross, cars and cyclists to dodge, nor other pedestrians to navigate around.
I sometimes find toilet breaks or coffee breaks (waiting for kettle to boil) fill the “daydream debugging” requirement. But that depends on having a clean bathroom with enough stalls, or an empty kitchen without other people making drinks.
Working from home definitely helps here. Though significantly less so during the holidays when kids are off.
Edit: just in case there’s any misunderstanding, I’m not suggesting having the kids around is a bad thing. I love my kids. Just that they have an obvious impact to my concentration.
Kids are like management that way. Tough to get work done efficiently when they’re around.
But unlike management, you get to tuck them in and “I love you” for no reason is a standard bonus with a free hug.
I think they’re saying that you could say “I’m going for a smoke break” at work and it was at least tolerated. I don’t think you can say “I’m going for a walk” the same way.
We still use the same phrase today "Smoke break?" "Yep" though none of us smoke any more, and some never did.
Why not? Ive been doing it for years, when I worked in office. Get someone to go with you. Or walk to get food/coffee/whatever.
We had 3pm coffee club at a previous job. It was great. Had our own slack channel(public). As the minutes counted down people would post gifs counting down (/giphy 4, /giphy 3). Most of the dev team would go. We’d go a heavy coffee shop. The talks there and back were great.
The perfect work ritual: fresh air, banter, coffee.
That doesn't sound so bad. I like chatting with people I know. I like coffee. Food is nice.
Except: My involvement in these activities doesn't leave much, if any, room for the kind of detachment that daydreaming requires.
The group needs to be big enough (6+ people) that you’re not just chatting with someone; you’re part of a group and can drift in and out .
Indeed.
It has varied a bit depending on the timeline, but: Going out for a walk (or to just change environments and very passively stare at nothing) has been less socially-acceptable than going out for a smoke, in my experience.
One of these things is weird, or perhaps inducing of ire ("How dare he just go outside when he feels like it! What is he even doing?").
The other is, at worst, both understandable and disgusting ("Of course he's out there again with that filthy habit!").
Smoke breaks used to be acceptable because your boss probably took them also.
Now that few people smoke, I don't think they are seen as a valid excuse to duck out for a few minutes.
"I need to stretch my legs" is probably better these days.
I've worked a number of places where smoking on site wasn't allowed, and it was well accepted that if you wanted to just disappear for 30 minutes once or twice a day no one would care.
"i'm going to go get a coffee" works fine in my experience
I have been doing this new practice I heard on some podcast or something - taking a short brisk walk like every thirty minutes. It was promoted for cardiovascular health, trying to compensate for sitting too much, but I also find it is incredibly good at letting me concentrate hard through more hours of work than without. I sometimes check the news or whatever but often just walk and listen to music or chat. I walk strictly five minutes, almost to the end of my block and back, and continue on. The timing ties in with my meditation training, Maezumi lineage, where we sit for 25 minutes then walk (first slowly and then quickly) for five minutes. In meditation it really allows one to sit with energy and focus all day long; also for software development, it turns out.
I also take a longer, 5 km, walk most days, as a way to control type 2 diabetes. This short regular walk is quite different.
Honestly the biggest issue is that the increased focus means I can get into a zone and two hours go by without pause, so every thirty minutes is not always met.
Almost. Nicotine does a lot of work in a short smoke break. Gotta walk for a lot longer to get close.
A cigarette to doing nothing, is like a dog to walking pointlessly.
Some of my deepest architectural work honestly happened... in a hammock on the balcony, while alternating between staring at a cloud, the sun, and two magpies building a nest in the birch tree while yelling at me occasionally.
Then I came back to my desk, saw that I had missed a call or two from my boss and he had a concerned message of where I was. I ignored that and sent him an architecture document an hour later. After years, it is still the backbone of our hosting infrastructure and will go into certification audits later this year.
One of my earlier startups, I was a junior/mid level software engineer. I took a skive day to WFH, but was actually travelling to a gig on the train. I sketched out something to pretend I was working that day, and sent him a photo of it. We ended up shipping that design and I only really made one major mistake that we fixed in v2.
It’s amazing how much value there is in idleness.
Rich Hickey, creator of clojure, literally calls this "Hammock driven development" and has a great talk on the matter (multiple actually):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
(oops, cross-posted with a similar comment.. well, shows the vid is watchworthy)
Update: this person has been fired for "slacking off". The manager only saw the absence, not the work output.
Rich Hickey gave a great talk on Hammock Driven Development
I've started to go stand in my front yard and just watch the world go by for 15 minutes or so and if I do it around dinner time then I can get away without looking weird as it's perfectly normal to wait uber eats this way.
It's your yard though, you can stand in it whenever you want.
That's where I solve most of the problems which have been nagging me
I've never had a 10 minute walk around the building not be tolerated, and that takes longer than my 5 minute smoke breaks used to.
That said, nicotine could get more done in my brain in those 5 minutes, but the toll on my body wasn't worth it.
I quit smoking years ago but I still go for walks with the same regularity I would smoke.
RIP smoke breaks