The world of luxury hotels and fine dining often hides stories of exceptional earnings, but one nineteen-year-old girl from Hamburg caused quite a stir on the internet after revealing her monthly income.

It is a specific amount of 4,000 euros net, a figure many highly educated professionals in Germany can only dream of, and which, as it turned out, is largely the result of tax-free tips.

The young waitress, who works as a station waitress in a fine dining restaurant within a prestigious five-star hotel, decided to share her financial situation on the popular online forum Reddit. Her income consists of a regular monthly salary of 2,500 euros, and average tips of as much as 1,500 euros, reveals Merkur.de. In order to achieve such an ambitious financial goal, the girl works a full forty hours a week at the hotel, while spending an additional eight hours at a second job. Her dream, namely, is to finance her own training to become a professional pilot, which is why, as she admits, she is forced to make many sacrifices, is devoted exclusively to sports, and has no time to socialize with friends.

Although she received a great deal of support in the comments for her ambitions, along with numerous messages of encouragement and advice for a pilot career, the amount of her monthly tips triggered an avalanche of negative, but also envious reactions. Academic citizens and highly educated professionals seemed particularly outraged, among whom software engineers dominated. Angry commenters pointed out that the waitress, although without formal higher education, earns more net money per month than a software programmer with a gross annual salary of 80,000 euros.

In that context, many expressed resentment over the fact that tips in Germany are legally not taxed, calling it "madness" and complaining about the high social security contributions in the country. Some even announced that they would give smaller tips in the future.

The debate quickly took on serious proportions, but there were also those who claimed that such high tip amounts in the luxury gastronomy segment are 'nothing unusual'. One person, confirming this claim, explained that her friend, although earning only 15 euros per hour, often receives around a hundred euros in tips in just one evening.

The waitress herself, after her post spread across the internet, tried in a follow-up comment to calm tensions, explaining that her earnings are 'very good, but by no means the best', pointing out that her head waiter, who serves a larger station and VIP guests, earns twice as much in tips as she does. The young waitress explained that the average amount of tips she receives daily is between eighty and one hundred twenty euros, part of which she always shares with the kitchen staff, but emphasized that the very wealthy clientele must be taken into account, for whom such amounts are literally 'small change'.