Text to column removes leading zero despite selecting "text"

I have a very long column of 5-digit hex values that I need to make into 4-digit hex values by shaving off the leading "A" from every one of those values (~65000 values). Every single one of the originating hex values starts with an A, if that matters.

I select text to columns, fixed width, select just the first character as the split, then select the output to be "text" and yet it always removes the leading zeroes.

A0000 becomes 1

A0001 becomes 2

etc.

instead of (what I want):

A0001 becomes 0001

A0002 becomes 0002

I tried selecting every cell inside the excel document, then format those cells as text, then do the above text-to-columns with the output as text but it always removes the leading zeroes.

I tried copying the original values, then pasting them as "only values", to be sure I didn't have some strange formatting, then doing the same split, and yet it removes the leading zeroes.

This has to be a bug, right?