Oh yeah, hated it when that happens.
Long, thin graphite sticks. Everywhere.

Yeaaah its kind of hard to push the inner rod down when you´re wearing mittens 24/7, Muppo.

Whelp, that's why my trusty old mech pencil have the button on the side, right on the rubber grip..

Shouldn't you have a pencil case? So that, you know, the damage is contained within said pencil case?

I don't run into these problems often since I can just write/draw with just the graphite, so I just carry only the graphites instead of a mechanical pencil.