Or you simply view being sociable as part of Merit. In fact I'd wager that to do well in almost any job you need to be sociable. Merit is not just about technical ability.
That's just an attempt to salvage meritocracy. The problem is that there is no single metric one could rigorously construct that encapsulates everything one needs for success, partly because 'success' isn't well-defined (there's no such thing as 'winning', remember?) and partly because even if such a metric were constructed it would rapidly become obsolete as one's personality and genreal society evolve.
In more technical terms, some spaces just aren't metrizable ;)
How is this really "Merit"? I'm "sociable" in the sense that due to my familly on my mother's side, i'm very used to talk to small business CEOs/CTOs, and from where i lived and studied, i'm comfortable talking to people who grew in a lot less fortunate households. I don't have one friend among those who did well in the corporate world. Because being "sociable" is more about cultural inheritance than anything. I am an introvert, but i was taught how to live with it (theatre, playing violin in front of a crowd, stuff like that). It was not particularly expensive in my country, so it is true that anyone could afford to do the same, thus "Merit", one could argue, but inheriting my grandfather violin, having my mother doing an art degree (and a medical one) and my father working as a social worker while being __extremely__ well taught tapestry then painting gave me conversation subject and "useless" knowledge for ages. Because knowing the reasoning behind impressionism, which impressionist school did what and how it evolved did a lot more than knowing how to code a VM for my current career.
Being sociable has degrees and shades. There's a difference between being a good team mate and being sociable within your team, and being a suckup with some director in your org to win favours. Both are about socialising and the latter is probs more "productive" for one's career without benefitting the company (apart from pushing the clique further).
Bingo. People are eager to dunk on education even though it's blatantly obvious that having a solid education is a tool, one of a plethora of tools, that is used to construct a career. Even academics will tell you that; they have to politick harder than anyone to win grants and reach tenure.
Sure, being sociable is a trait they could rate on. That's different than people giving you preference for a job/promotion because they know you or you share traits with them.
In more technical terms, some spaces just aren't metrizable ;)