WATERLOO, IA—Employees of Greenscapes Lawn and Garden were left in awe and humility on Friday after their employer graced the company with his new paperweight.
Benjamin "Benny" Ruprecht, 49, has served as owner and operator of the company with 15 employees since 1983. Witnesses close to the company report that on Friday, with no warning whatsoever, the object in question appeared on Ruprecht's desk, slightly in the left field of vision as one enters the office and faces Ruprecht.
Its presence has changed everything.
"I liked my job and all," explained Gerald Romano, 31, and employee of Ruprecht since 2011. "I like working with my hands, and I like the outside. There's something different every day." Romano said that he knew things were going to be different somehow when he awoke on Friday morning. "I set my alarm for 5:15, just like every [work]day. But at 5:14, my eyes just opened on their own and I was immediately awake, and as coherent as I'd ever been. I don't want to sound crazy, but I felt like it was calling to me."
Edgar Fulbright, 28, agreed that there was something otherworldly about that day. "When I got into the office, I just looked around. I felt somehow simultaneously at peace and wished more than ever to serve the boss, with every fiber of my being. And then, that's when I gazed upon it."
Fulbright speaks of the small paperweight that mysteriously arrived upon Ruprecht's desk that morning, or that he perhaps never noticed before.
"It was so strange. I walked into Benny's [Ruprecht] office to check in on my assignment, just like every morning. and my eyes were drawn to it, like a salmon to its birth waters."
Several employees shared that the experience of looking upon the item that retails for about $7.99 was spiritual.
Romano commented that "I almost couldn't look right at it at first. It was like adjusting my eyes to a bright room after being surrounded by nothing but darkness. But then, when I did, everything—and I mean everything—suddenly seemed to make sense to me."
Fulbright noted that "I'd never really known what life was all about. I'd never really felt true, unbridled purpose. But on that day, and ever since, I just feel it in my bones that I'm a landscaper. I was born, and I live to landscape."
The other employees shared their similar experiences of contact with the paperweight, using words like "transcend," "total clarity," and "imprint." In all cases, the paperweight seems to have completely changed the atmosphere of the Greenscapes Lawn and Garden forever, along with each employee's life outlook.
When reached for comment about the paperweight, Ruprecht said, "Oh yeah. I'd been thinking I should spruce up the ol' office a bit to boost morale or whatever. I hung some posters and put a few potted ferns around the place, and then I saw this little dandy [the paperweight] and thought it might look nice on my desk. You know, it's the little things that make the difference."
Ruprecht's plan seems to have worked, and it was that paperweight, in all of its simple glory, that made all the difference.