Regarding the owner's statement, and I might be wrong, I believe that the file was somewhere in the examining unit waiting for the owner's statement (or the time to expire for such a response). It may have been someone else's responsibility to update the file and forward it to the examiner when the statement either arrived or the date to reply expired.

I believe this because the person I spoke with (2/16) said that they would call the patent owner to see if they replied. It struck me as odd at the time but makes sense now if someone else was supposed to stay on top of this and then send the file to the examiner for the first office action.

It was one week later (2/23) that the supervisor called me to say that I souldn't expect a first office action right away. Coincidentally, the file was forwarded to the examiner later that day.