Yes. Just tell the guy to get off his butt and go and see if the item is in stock. This has worked every time for me. I call walmart on a reg to see if an item is in stock before having to drive all the way there.
So my choice is to harass/insult a minimum wage employee and distract them from their already-overloaded and already-minmaxed job so that I can spend more, get in my vehicle and spew carbon into the atmosphere to......give money to a family of ultra-billionaires instead of one ultrabillionaire? And that's helping my local economy?
They didn't mean you should literally say those exact words. You could say something like "Would you mind checking it for me yourself? I'd really appreciate it."