It's astonishing how many people come to me with a Peter Principle story from their own work. It's also incredible just how many people from all walks of life experience that they are working with incompetents.
What I'd throw in there as well is competence noise. The people who are sitting with someone day-to-day can tell whether they are competent. But the person who decides who gets promoted is somehow blind to this.
Actually it's not universally true that people working closely together know who is competent and who is not. Because you yourself need to be competent to know if others are doing a good job or not. If you are surrounded by incompetent morons you as likely might be labeled as incompetent by them and since they are the majority you lose the battle. It doesn't even have to be done on purpose by the morons, they just don't know they are bad at what they are are doing and create a kind of a circlejerk re-assuring themselves
Incompetent manager: "Hey uh can you pop open that firewall for me?"
Me: "That's against corporate policy. You'd need to follow procedure xyz."
Incompetent manager: "My good friend, J could open that firewall in 15 mins flat. J opened the firewall for me 4 times last week. He could show you how if you don't know what you are doing, its no problem."
Me: Facepalming "Didn't you hear what I just said?"
Of course the above happens in a meeting with a congregation of people.
What I'd throw in there as well is competence noise. The people who are sitting with someone day-to-day can tell whether they are competent. But the person who decides who gets promoted is somehow blind to this.