Dolly Sang “9 to 5.” I’m Learning When to Stop.
Updated: Sep 28
Written by Matthew Payan, Founder & CEO of Geaux-Tech AI & Digital Services
Updated after Dolly Day, September 25, 2026: New Orleans gave Dolly her own day. I’ve added what I saw, photos from the day, and ways to give in her honor below.
The day after Labor Day, I’m carrying Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” into a different kind of workweek. I meant to publish this on Labor Day. By 8 p.m., I hadn’t even started.
That feels like the right place to begin reflecting on work. There is always another message to answer, another idea to test, another detail to improve. When you are building a company, the work rarely gives you a clear signal that you have done enough for today.
Now it’s the day after Labor Day. The list is waiting, and Dolly Parton’s passing is still hitting me, so I keep coming back to “9 to 5.” I hear that song differently as I build a business of my own. The question that stays with me reaches beyond how hard I’m willing to work: what kind of life, and what kind of community, should all that work help create?
The work behind the title
“Founder and CEO” fits neatly under a name. The actual job spreads across the entire day.
At Geaux-Tech, I move between developer, marketer, strategist, and business owner. Writing the code is one responsibility. Explaining why it matters, checking that it works, finding the next opportunity, and deciding what I can responsibly promise are others.
That last part carries weight. A proposal represents someone else’s money and trust. A deadline becomes a commitment. Even when AI helps me move faster, I still own the decisions and the result.
As a young CEO, I’m learning how much of entrepreneurship happens outside the finished work people see. Preparation underpins a good conversation, revision underpins a clear plan, and uncertainty underpins a decision that eventually looks obvious.
I want to build something I’m proud of. I also want to enjoy the life I’m building it for. Holding both of those ambitions at once takes practice.
Why Dolly keeps coming to mind
Dolly had a way of making ordinary working people feel worth listening to.
Her 1980 song “9 to 5” gave familiar workplace frustrations a voice people could carry with them. To me, its energy holds something serious: people want their effort recognized, their time respected, and a fair chance to move forward.
That deserves space beyond Labor Day, a holiday rooted in American workers' contributions. I’m also thinking of the people who worked through the holiday: preparing meals, caring for others, serving customers, and doing the jobs that let someone else take a break.
Since Dolly’s passing on August 25, I’ve been thinking about how much a person can mean to people they will never meet. Her loss still feels personal to me. The music remains, and so does the example she set through the way she gave back.
That is the part of her legacy I want to carry into my own work.
Could your business take an afternoon off?
If you run a business, try this quick check. Imagine you put your phone away for one afternoon. Could you confidently say yes to each of these?
1. A new customer inquiry would land somewhere it would not get lost.
2. That person would get an accurate acknowledgment and know when to expect a reply.
3. The next follow-up would be assigned or scheduled, rather than depending on my memory.
Give yourself one point for each yes.
How many could you confidently say yes to?
0-1
2
3
Choose your score, then keep reading. At the end, I’ll share one practical next step for each result, and an invitation if you want help applying it.
A company should mean something to the place it calls home
Dolly’s Imagination Library began in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up. It became a book-gifting program reaching children well beyond her home community. Today, that reach includes New Orleans, where the Krewe of Dolly brings it to children across Orleans Parish. More on that below.
I keep coming back to that beginning: a specific place, a specific need, and a decision to do something useful.
I’m at the beginning of my own business story. My scale is small, and my responsibilities are close to home. That makes the question of who benefits from my work very concrete.
Metairie and Greater New Orleans are where I want Geaux-Tech to mean something. The people running businesses here are neighbors. Their companies support households, employ people, and help give our community its character.
If I can help an owner spend less of the evening sorting through disconnected messages, or make it easier for a customer to reach a local business, that is useful work. It gives my technical and marketing skills a purpose I can understand beyond the screen.
I want my company to earn trust through that kind of usefulness, one relationship and one well-executed commitment at a time.
Update: New Orleans gave Dolly her own day
Less than three weeks after I wrote this, New Orleans answered the question I kept circling. On September 25, the city celebrated its first official Dolly Day. The date was no accident: 9/25, a nod to “9 to 5.”
The Krewe of Dolly lined up at Armstrong Park, second-lined through the French Quarter, and ended at the New Orleans Jazz Museum, where the Mayor’s Office proclaimed Dolly Day. The night closed at Blue Nile on Frenchmen Street with live Dolly tributes. I spent the whole day there with my camera and cut it into the 10-minute tribute below.
The part that stayed with me ties right back to this post. The whole celebration doubled as a fundraiser for Dolly’s Imagination Library, the same program that started with one county in Tennessee. Here, the Krewe of Dolly is the local program partner that mails free books every month to children across Orleans Parish, from birth until age five.
It’s what I wrote about above, happening in my own city: a specific place, a specific need, and people deciding to do something useful.
If you want to give like Dolly:
Give locally: Donate to the Krewe of Dolly to fund Imagination Library books for New Orleans children. The Krewe says $35 sends one child a free book every month for a year.
Give from anywhere: Give in Dolly’s honor through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which her family asked people to support.
Know a family with a child under five? They can check whether free books are available where they live.
What should keep working when I step away?
This is where AI fits into my story.
I use AI as part of how I work, and I’m building toward systems that make stepping away easier. With the right setup, defined tasks can continue around the clock: a website can receive an inquiry, an automated response can acknowledge it, and a workflow can organize it for a person to review. AI can help with tasks that need interpretation; straightforward scheduling and routing often need ordinary automation.
Those systems need clear limits, testing, and someone accountable when something goes wrong. My judgment, relationships, and responsibility remain mine.
Some tasks can run 24/7. My attention cannot.
That is the future I want for Geaux-Tech: practical technology that makes room for careful work, human connection, and time away. I want the hours I put in to create something that holds together when I close the laptop.
What I’m carrying into this workweek
There is more to build. There will be more to learn, more to fix, and more decisions that stretch me.
This week, I want to be more deliberate about what needs my attention, what a dependable system can handle, and what can wait.
I want to remember Dolly with gratitude. I want time to enjoy the place I call home and think about the kind of founder I’m becoming. I want Geaux-Tech to become something special for this community and for me, something I can look at years from now and recognize the care that went into it.
Dolly’s example leaves me thinking about what people receive from a lifetime of someone’s work: a song that understands them, an opportunity, a little more possibility.
I’m still working out what my version of that will be. Publishing this a day later is a small place to practice the patience I keep saying matters.
What are you working so hard to make possible?
Your next step toward a lighter workday
Remember that afternoon-off check? Here is where I would start:
- 0-1: Give new inquiries one reliable place to land, with an honest acknowledgment of when you will reply.
- 2: Strengthen the missing handoff. Test what happens when you are unavailable for a few hours.
- 3: Look at the exceptions. Decide who steps in when a request needs human judgment.
Your score is a starting point. The useful question is which small change would give you more room to do the work and live the life you care about.
If you want help choosing that change, I’m offering a free 20-minute audit call through Geaux-Tech. We’ll focus on one part of your business that keeps pulling you back into work, talk through how it runs today, and look for a practical next step.
Fill out the short form, and I’ll email you to arrange a time. No obligation; the call is confirmed once we agree on a time.
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