Consecutive days count as one event

[Michael Mac]

I'm tracking occurances of clocking-in late, and unexcused absences in Access
2002. My data resides in two tables tblTardy and tblMissedShift. I'm trying
to automate the generation of letters of reprimand which state the total
number of occurances. One occurance is clocking-in late. Another occurance
is missing a shift with an unexcused absence -- however, missing consecutive
days counts as ONE occurance (there is my problem).

For example: I'm late to work Monday = one occurance. I'm late Tuesday =
two occurances. I call in sick Wednesday = three occurances. I call in sick
Thursday = still three occurances (consecutive sick days only count as one
episode). I'm late Friday = four occurances.

tblTardy:
idxTardyID, intStaff, dtmClockIn, dtmStartTime

tblMissedShift:
idxMissedShiftID, intStaff, dtmClockIn, intReason

tblPersonnelData: many fields. The only one used here is a boolean field
to indicate if the employee is active in our department (they are on our
phone list).

tblStaff: provides an indexed staff number and name.

I fumbled & blundered my way into the following UNION query:
SELECT tblStaff.chrStaffLastName, tblStaff.chrStaffFirstName,
Count(tblTardy.dtmClockIn) AS CountOfdtmClockIn
FROM (tblStaff RIGHT JOIN tblTardy ON tblStaff.idxStaffID =
tblTardy.intStaff) LEFT JOIN tblPersonnelData ON tblStaff.idxStaffID =
tblPersonnelData.intStaff
GROUP BY tblStaff.chrStaffLastName, tblStaff.chrStaffFirstName,
tblPersonnelData.bolPhoneList
HAVING (((tblPersonnelData.bolPhoneList)=True))
ORDER BY tblStaff.chrStaffLastName

UNION SELECT tblStaff.chrStaffLastName, tblStaff.chrStaffFirstName,
Count(tblMissedShift.dtmClockIn) AS CountOfdtmClockIn
FROM (tblStaff RIGHT JOIN tblMissedShift ON tblStaff.idxStaffID =
tblMissedShift.intStaff) LEFT JOIN tblPersonnelData ON tblStaff.idxStaffID =
tblPersonnelData.intStaff
GROUP BY tblStaff.chrStaffLastName, tblStaff.chrStaffFirstName,
tblPersonnelData.bolPhoneList
HAVING (((tblPersonnelData.bolPhoneList)=True));

This query lists a name with the total number of entries, for that person,
in the table. It's close, but not quite what I need. Any solutions? Need
any more info?? Be gentle, I'm not an IT pro.

Thanks,
Michael Mac