It's not always easy for young professionals looking for a job to get in contact with a company's top officials.
That's certainly the case for Diana Mekota, a 26-year-old job-seeker who sent a LinkedIn invite to the CEO of the Cleveland Job bank, Yahoo! Shine reported.
Instead of accepting Mekota's request, the CEO, Kelly Blazek, wrote a scathing email to the young professional, upbraiding her for sending an "inappropriate" and "tacky" invite to a top professional like her.
Mekota posted the email on Facebook, Reddit and Imgur on Tuesday and it has since gone viral, Yahoo! Shine reported.
"Your invite to connect is inappropriate, beneficial only to you, and tacky." Blazek told Mekota in the email. "Apparently you have heard that I produce a Job Bank, and decided it would be stunningly helpful for your career prospects if I shared my 960+ LinkedIn connections with you- a total stranger who has nothing to offer me."
Blazek, who is described as the "Job Bank Mother," also shared her thoughts on what's wrong with Mekota's entire generation.
"I love the sense of entitlement in your generation. And therefore I enjoy Denying your invite, and giving you the dreaded 'I Don't Know'...because it is the truth," Blazek wrote.
According to The Plain Dealer, Mekota graduated from John Carroll University. Mekota posted Blazek's email on social media for everyone to "call this lady out," Yahoo! Shine reported.
"Guess us twenty somethings should bow down to senior professional because clearly we have nothing to offer." Mekota wrote on Imgur.
Blazek later sent an apology to Mekota and to The Plain Dealer.
"I am very sorry to the people I have hurt," said Blazek, who was named the "2013 Communicator of the Year" by the International Association of Business Communicators in Cleveland, Ohio.
"Hundreds of people contact me every month looking for help, and as the bottom fell out of the job market, their outreach and requests demanded more of my time. I became shortsighted and impatient and that was wrong," Blazek wrote to The Plain Dealer.
Mekota is currently moving from Rochester, New York back to Cleveland, The Plain Dealer reported.
"So the job search continues..." Mekota wrote on Imgur.