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Warehouse capacity
Company C needed to know Company D's warehouse capacity. Here, the people in the know might be staff in the warehouse (but they tend to be hard to get hold of on the phone, and they could refer you to their boss rather than talk to an unknown caller) and the operations manager, who'd certainly want to know more about who wanted to know, and why.

However, security guards also know about a company's property, its layout and contents. They work long, unsocial hours and phone calls are a welcome diversion.

What happened? Company C called up at 10pm one Sunday evening. When the security guard answered, Company C asked when the warehouse opened for deliveries - a reasonable question and likely to prompt a request for identification.

Company C then asked, 'Is it better to be early to beat the queue, or are there enough loading bays to cope with demand?'

The security guard indicated that there were probably enough bays, but the idle question, 'How many bays are there?' prompted a specific answer. As the security guard became more expansive, Company C risked asking, 'Out of curiosity, who else delivers to the warehouse?' The guard was surprisingly unguarded in his replies!