Okay, it's weird but it's still happening. Org-mode 9.1.5 as above. Hmmm,
if I kill the buffer and reopen it, its sorts itself

Here's the header settings

#+STARTUP:              showall
#+LANGUAGE:             en
#+OPTIONS:              H:2 num:nil toc:nil \n:nil
#+OPTIONS:              TeX:t LaTeX:t skip:nil d:nil todo:t pri:nil
tags:not-in-toc
#+INFOJS_OPT:           view:nil toc:nil ltoc:t mouse:underline buttons:0
path:https://orgmode.org/org-info.js
#+EXPORT_SELECT_TAGS:   export
#+EXPORT_EXCLUDE_TAGS:  noexport


actual text C&P from org buffer


| date     | task                                  | time |   |   |
|----------+---------------------------------------+------+---+---|
| 19/07/12 | admin stuff -- slack, trello, backlog |    3 |   |   |
| 19/07/16 | meeting. followup.                    |  2.5 |   |   |
|          |                                       |      |   |   |

screen shot



On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 2:58 PM Charles R (Charlie) Martin <
chasrmartin@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've got Org mode version 9.1.5 (9.1.5-1-gb3ddb0-elpa
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 2:24 PM John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> This looks like an old org bug that has been fixed in newer versions.
>>
>> John
>>
>> -----------------------------------
>> Professor John Kitchin
>> Doherty Hall A207F
>> Department of Chemical Engineering
>> Carnegie Mellon University
>> Pittsburgh, PA 15213
>> 412-268-7803
>> @johnkitchin
>> http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 3, 2019 at 3:06 PM Neil Jerram <neiljerram@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I just tried this with
>>>
>>> Org mode version 9.1.5 (release_9.1.5-1784-g772949 @
>>> /home/neil/src/org-mode/lisp/)
>>>
>>> and I don't see the problem with that version.  What version do you have?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 at 19:48, Charles R (Charlie) Martin <
>>> chasrmartin@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> This seems like an unlikely bug because it's very basic to org-mode
>>>> tables, but if I'm doing something wrong I sure can't figure out what.
>>>>
>>>> I have this table:
>>>>
>>>> | Date                   | Count | Pages |
>>>> |------------------------+-------+-------|
>>>> | 2019-Aug-03 (Sat, 215) | 2069  |     7 |
>>>> |                        |       |       |
>>>>
>>>> but when I hit TAB or C-c C-c to reformat the table it is displayed as
>>>> in the screenshot
>>>>
>>>> [image: Screenshot 2019-08-03 12.44.51.png]
>>>>
>>>> Copying the text with M-w is still the same.
>>>>
>>>> | Date                   | Count | Pages |
>>>> |------------------------+-------+-------|
>>>> | 2019-Aug-03 (Sat, 215) |  2069 |     7 |
>>>> |                        |       |       |
>>>>
>>>> I'm immensely puzzled.
>>>>
>>>> Signed
>>>> Immensely puzzled
>>>>
>>>