Have a successful and productive (working) day! 

[Dutch phrase of the week]
[werk ze]

Literally “werk ze” would translate to “work them” or “work it“, but there’s not really a suitable equivalent in English. We – the Dutch – use it to express a wish to our colleagues to have a successful and productive (working) day. The use of “werk ze” is quite informal. Sometimes you may also see “werk se”, which is a direct (Dutch) notation of how “werk ze” is pronounced.

There are other uses of imperative forms of verbs, combined with “-ze” or “-se”. Two examples:
– “Eet ze”: bon appetit / enjoy your meal.
– “Slaap ze”: good night.
It seems that mostly intransitive verbs can be combined with “-ze” or “-se”, to wish someone a successful execution of an activity. But it wouldn’t be Dutch if there were no exceptions to that rule 🙂

Examples:
– “Fijne dag!” – “Dankjewel, werk ze!” 
(“Have a nice day!” – “Thank you, have a good day at the office!”)

– “Schat, ik ben weg!” – “Okee lieverd, werk ze.” 
(“Honey, I’m out of here!” – “Okay, sweetie, have fun at work.”)

– “Werk ze!” – “Vandaag niet, ik heb de griep…” 
(“Have a good day at work!” – “Not today, I have the flu…”)

Expressions:
– “Een goed begin is het halve werk“: well begun is half done.

Related words:
– Werk: work [noun] [het werk, <no plural>].
– Werken: to work [verb] [werken, werkte, h. gewerkt].

Example:
– “Ik heb vandaag geen zin om naar mijn werk te gaan…”
(“I don’t feel like going to work today…”)