We used to eat pretty well and treated ourselves to nice lunches.

One time, were doing a job in Hinsdale Illinois which was, and still is, a pretty affluent suburb of Chicago - they had million dollar homes when a million dollars was something.

Any whoo, one day we were eating lunch in an upscale-ish deli and I noticed some older lady giving us the stink-eye. Didn't think much about it... Until a couple days later I read, in the local rag, a letter to the editor complaining about "grubby looking trades-people" eating in their restaraunts and how "something needed to be done about it." She mentioned the name of the deli so I was sure it was me, my brother and our boss she was talking about.

We did mostly residential work and my experience was, for the most part, the same as yours. Tips, home cooked lunches, bathrooms - yep.

We had some "rich" lady complain to our boss one time because we weren't working fast enough for her. Her beef was our waiting out a rainstorm in the truck.