Why aren't restaurants training their staff??

In my 18 years in the restaurant industry the most frustrating thing I have witnessed, and still witness today is the apparent lack of training.  Have you ever noticed when you go out to dinner that you can tell almost right away weather your server is having a bad night, which usually leads to you having a bad evening.

Even at fine dining restaurants, when a new employee is hired, it seems like just because the person has been a server for 5 years, that they must know how to sell.  Servers in restaurants are the revenue generators, it is beyond me why great care isn't taken in molding these people into the type of server that is expected by the guest.  Now, that being said, their are a great deal of very good servers out there, who deserve to be recognized, but for those lost ones out there who have been left to self destruct, I can only hope that your managers will see potential and work to pull it out.

There are several ways to make it fun and educational at the same time, I used to pull all my server aside before the evening began and give them the run down on the dessert tray.  Then came the incentive, $20 cash to the server who sold the first dessert, but then the next server to sell one would take it from that server, and so on.  This would continue until around 8:00pm and whoever was holding the $20 at 8:00pm keeps it.  You want to talk about a free-for-all, all my female servers looked like they were at a shoe sale at Macy's selling dessert after dessert just to be the winner at the end.

Now look at this as a manger who's trying to generate increases in sales, 10 servers on the floor, times 3 average desserts per server, at $6.00 per dessert = $180.  If someone on the street asked me to give them $20 and they'd give me $180 in trade, that's a good deal any way you slice it.