Home Depot contracts out the restocking and maintenance of packaged screws, bolts etc (not the 1# and 5# boxes of nails, drywall screws etc and the like). Thing to do is to find what day the store gets restocked by the contracted supplier. It will be a set weekly time. If the sales associate in hardware doesn't know (highly probable) look for one of the HD inventory control people: they'll be the ones pushing the little computer carts around during the early morning hours or track down the hardware department head. Most of the time the vendors HD uses are more than happy to strike up conversations with customers. You'll more likely than not find that they sell retail too and I can guarantee they have a far wider variety of goods than you can get in the big orange box. I've done this on several occasions when I needed specialty sized bolts and the regular places like fastenal only wanted to sell me a bag of 100 when I needed 10.
