"The world of HR is a crazy business and if you are an HR professional, you know it," she wrote in her recently published book Dumber Than a Box of Hair: The HR Nightmare Chronicles. "It doesn't matter what the industry is, every HR manager has some great people stories to tell."

Her book, which includes such tell-it-like-it-is chapters as "Are You the Lady That Hires and Fires?," "Saying Goodbye Isn't Easy," and "Equal Opportunity Discriminators," recounts the consequences of alcohol-fueled office Christmas parties, nosy co-workers, over-entitled job candidates, the gossip-worthy use of a butcher block table in a restaurant kitchen, and other on-the-job blunders. (Hint: those involved often end up as employees of other companies.

An adjunct faculty member who holds a 2012 master's degree in administration of justice, Maher-Daniels has been a human resources manager at Burris Logistics in Elkton, Maryland, since 2006. She's also worked for Citibank, the Delaware Federal Credit Union and as an independent consultant to small and mid-sized businesses since securing her first HR job in 1988.

"Little did I know back then that I would embark on an odyssey of observing and listening to some of the most bizarre and humorous behaviors of human beings in the workplace," she wrote. "I also gained some incredible perspectives into the mindset of Fortune 500 companies in America and the good and bad management they hire."

Maher-Daniels places the blame for the highlights - or low lights - of her book on an erosion of common sense in the workplace. "When I entered the workforce back in the early 1980s, there were no employee handbooks that said 'Please do not come to work if you are drunk, high as a kite, or feel like pistol whipping somebody,'" she mused.

Her talk is sponsored by the Wilmington University College of Business, Department of Student Life and the Robert C. & Dorothy M. Peoples Library.