I got hosed on my special count as well. My route, a new one, was built from three different routes and used their volume factors averaging 2.15. However, because it's a new route it was subject to the special count. Consequently, the volume factor plunged to 1.68 as the mail and parcels evaporated for those two weeks. The upshot, I went from 45k to 41k. The real ball buster is that the three routes from which my route was built are still enjoying their higher volume factors.
Guess I'll be putting in a helluva lot of free hours this holiday season.