Early in my tech career I realized pretty quickly that, despite not being a smoker, I needed go outside with the smokers during their smoke breaks because that's where a lot of ideas were discussed. It was where I could continue learning from guys who were almost all senior to me at the time in a more relaxed, informal setting.
The smoking was terrible--don't get me wrong--and I'm glad its much more rare now than it was 25 years ago.
Same here, but I took up smoking outside with them and it put me in the inside group on projects/tasks. I never picked up smoking outside of these little daily excursions and I realize it's playing with fire, but at least for my career it was one of the best things I could have done.
The smoking was terrible--don't get me wrong--and I'm glad its much more rare now than it was 25 years ago.