I think we've all encountered an Eric. I worked with one a few years ago (not the first, and I'm sure it won't be the last) who was in the end fired. Very similar to this story he was an individual who considered himself to be much more talented than was the case; but for this Eric, it didn't lead to arrogance, instead he would attempt tasks beyond his competency, leave an almighty mess in his wake, and the rest of his team had to spend time cleaning up after him. Eric worked on a test team, so his messes were seldom critical; but eventually his team mates convinced their manager that he wasted so much of their time that he was a liability. He had laready been moved round a number of different teams, no other manager was willing to take him on, improvement plans were tried (and failed), and eventually it fell to a colleague of Eric's (and a personal friend of mine) to come up with an "assessment plan" - to show how effective he was in his role - and other team members were instructed to report weekly on how much time they spent fixing or re-doing tasks Eric had already attempted. The two reports were completed over an eight week period and sent to HR and a senior management team for evaluation - the decision was that he cost the company more than he earned, and that he was barely competent to do his job - he was fired, and went with relatively little fuss (my friend reckons that he was well aware of his fate long before the axe fell).

As a post-script: Eric's father was a very successful local businessman, owned a string of car dealer ships and workshops, and eventually employed Eric in his own business; not before he turned up at our offices a day or two after Eric's sacking, and demanded a meeting with the company's Managing Director to explain why his son had been fired. (From this you might guess our Eric's age, in fact he was in his mid-forties).