I said after the gear was fully retracted the flaps were retracted from CONF 3 to CONF 2 before maybe a few minutes and a right turn later being fully retracted. I wouldn't know if it was a trainee F/O I'm just saying what I saw and I could bet my house on it being CONF 3, flaps were extended to CONF 2 after we pushed back from the D Gates and before entering Runway 24 to CONF 3.
Maybe it was CONF2...
As what you say isn't how Airbus do things.
After a take off it would have gone from CONF 3 (or2) straight to CONF 1, the flaps would then be retracted fully.
It is quite possible flaps were extended before entering the runway though, maybe someone set the wrong stage of flap, which was picked up by the BEFORE TAKE OFF checks, at which stage the correct flap setting would have been set.
Sometimes these checks are run all the way through (above and below the line) on line up if time is short, hence why the flaps could have been set to the ACTUAL position they were meant to be just before entering the runway.
I fly the airbus and I commute home in the back of the plane every weekend, and unless I count the number of deployments (on approach due to the noise) I couldn't tell you what config we are in (other than pitch attitude I suppose), I just don't think it is that easy to see!
So, what everyone seems to have forgotten above, it IS possible that flaps were extended just before departure... but not due to a re-calucation. Just due to some forgetting. And let's all admit it, it is easy to do the same thing you do every single day by accident, Day 5, 20th sector?
That's why we have two people, warnings and checklists.