Hi,

> I appreciate your prompt response. Would you know how long it takes
> for a fix to be put out so that we can download and use it?

Engine developers mean that this is "as designed". This means that fix
will not be available soon. There are possible workarounds:

- declare column as VARCHAR(2) from the very beginning;
- declare column as CHAR(2) CHARACTER SET OCTETS (or any other
one-byte charset);

Best regards,
Roman Rokytskyy