[bloomingeek]

In the non-tech world they're called schmoozers. They were either former athletes, quick witted, good looking, well spoken and/or cockie. Everyone knew they were incompetent, but they seemed to always get away with it because they were likable.

When they were in over their head on a project, they were always assigned someone who could bail them out. Because of this they always increased the work load of others, thus they were loathed. What usually helped us was they would get promoted, then they became useful because then we could control the projects.