nested countif not working

I am trying to track metrics for a QC dept. Right now my sheet has 35 lines of data and a header row, for 36 lines total.

This is my funtion that isn't quite right:

=IF($A$2:A36="",,COUNTBLANK($F$2:F36))

I'm looking at ColA, which is gives the log# for a customer complaint, I'm trying to count blank cells in ColF, which shows the date the complaint is closed.

The results for my COUNTBLANK is always one more than it should be, because it's picking up the blank on Row36.....which is my problem.

Row36 is all blank. I'm curious why the logical test allows the COUNTBLANK to include cell F36 in its tally.

FYI, I've also tried this and it gives me the same result:

=IF($A$2:A36<>"",COUNTBLANK($F$2:F36))

Thanks
Ted