I'm starting to get the picture. It really lines up with my experiences in the corporate world.
By "soft skills," what older generations are really alluding to is that they desire corporate buttslaves. A college kid who doesn't give a f**k about their ugly grandkids or golf handicap doesn't have social skills. Those who don't want to make friends with their boring, half-retarded colleagues aren't "team players." Those who want to use technology to communicate are less effective - not because they get less done, but because the boss is desperate to call a face-to-face meeting so he can feel important again.
It's the same depressing, awful bullshit best parodied by Office Space, Fight Club or Dilbert. Meaningless corporate dominance rituals paraded as "sound advice." Don't have standards, don't treat your boss as an equal, don't go to school for twenty years and expect something more than burger flipping - before you can succeed, you must become a bitch.
Well, f**k that. How about we get some professionalism going on in the corporate world instead of this amateur hour HR bullshit?