Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : Last week, I attended a networking event for university students and professionals in my field. Following on from that, a couple of students emailed me.

One of them, who I'll call 'FF' has the wrong idea about how to send a follow-up networking email. In the email, FF brown-nosed in every possible way. They complimented me 3 times in the first sentence. They referred to a very specific thing we discussed in a really artificial way, clearly following some formula that says "refer back to conversational points so they know you listened/so they remember you." It was something like "I really enjoyed hearing that story about the time 3.5 years ago that your pencil broke in an exam and you had to ask for another one but the teacher gave you a pen instead and then you finished the exam!"

WIBTA if I give FF some gentle constructive criticism about their email style? On the one hand, it was cringeworthy and artificial and someone should tell them to relax and speak naturally. On the other hand, I tried to write a response in 10 different ways and every version came out like a backhanded insult.

Or WIBTA if I don't say anything?