At the young age of 27 I had finally decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a copy writer. My TBF works as an art director and at the time was working at an ad agency. She pulled a couple of strings and I was taken on as a copy writer. I got told it wouldn't do me any good starting at the bottom of the food chain, and as luck would have it, one senior art director was sans a copy writer.
I became a copy writer. I kind of figured out what to do but did a pretty good job for the most part, because for most the part, I had to come with creative ideas and write the copy for said ideas. Idea generation would only stop when we would visit the coffee machine. Along the way we would stop and say hi to the different teams, get our caffeine fix and get back to work. I could only handle about two of these in the morning, and in the afternoon, when my art director would say "Coffee", I would go for the walk.
People who work in advertising agencies drink a lot of coffee. A lot. I could see the shock on my fellow co workers faces when I would turn down another afternoon coffee. They would ask why and when I replied "I won't sleep if I drink coffee after lunch", the shock turned to disbelief. It is the same look I get when I tell people the reason why I won't eat pork is because I just happen to like pigs.
Despite my caffeine limitations, I did make good friends with the smokers. I myself am not a smoker, probably because when all the cool kids started smoking in high school, I just couldn't get the whole inhaling without choking part down. I would go for regular smoke breaks, and even though I was getting my second hand smoke on, I find that smokers are generally very chatty and fun to be around.
As a non smoker, if I took a ten minute break every two hours, I would be seen as a slacker and would probably get a warning. But as a smoker, this is a right, and by blending in with the smokers, I too get to take these breaks without any judgement.