Minor Arcana, Wands
Five of Wands
competition, friction, rivalry, sparring
Upright
Five young people swing staves at each other, and nobody seems to be hurt. Waite calls it imitation, a sham fight, and also the hard competition for money and position.
At work this can describe a noisy team where everyone pushes a different idea. Some of that friction may be sport and some may be real, so find out which. Ask each person what they actually need, then settle one point at a time.
Reversed
Turned over, the play fight gets sharper. Waite lists disputes, trickery, contradiction and even litigation, so a disagreement may have stopped being friendly.
Keep written records of what was agreed, and check stories that keep changing. This card is no forecast about any court case, so if legal trouble is a real possibility, speak with a qualified lawyer and leave the cards out of that decision.
A card is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
In Waite's words
Upright: Imitation, as, for example, sham fight, but also the strenuous competition and struggle of the search after riches and fortune. In this sense it connects with the battle of life. Hence some attributions say that it is a card of gold, gain, opulence.
Reversed: Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction.
From A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), Part 3, on Wikisource. The meanings above are by Cast & Chart.
Card art by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.