My job is a huge part of my life; it would be weird if I didn't talk about it. I don't feel that there is any job competition between my friends and I. We do what we do for our own reasons, and that's that. There's nothing to be competitive about.

That said, I don't have any friends (outside of work) that have the same job as I do, so that might cut down on the feelings of competition.

depends on which friends
those who i attended grad school with - definite yes!
my other friends, not really, as we are in such different fields

yup, depends on which friend. I have friends from junior high in another country likes to question me about my work and the kind of position I am in, in an organization. In HK, it is perfectly okay (in sync with the culture there) to ask another who you have not contacts for a while such as a childhood friend these three questions are legitimate to ask: 1) What kind of position you have in an organization 2) How much $$$ do you make and 3) where do you live because based on the answer of those questions, they can find out if you have enough $$$ to pay for social events and if you go crazy, they know which company to contact you to complain about your behavior. If you don't answer and they don't believe, it is more than normal to probe into you for further details. B/c it shows that they are intelligent enough to screen you correctly and that they really care more about your status than who you are as a person. We could still be friends but of course we keep them as outer circles.

Yeah, to some extent. My job is by its nature competitive from education upwards...some people cross the line into obnoxious thoug, and I don't find that acceptable.

I have the most disrespected job in the world; I raise my kids.
But I don't compete with career women, everyone has their place, right now, not forever, I decided my place is with my children. Later, whatever field I enter, I'll let my efforts speak for me.

my friends don't work in my industry - so it's not that kind of competitiveness but i do feel like sometimes we do compete a little bit. i think that it's kind of expected that we all want to be better than our friends - to have a better job and more money and all that.

We talk about it, but I don't even know how we could be competitive, as we're in such different fields. We all went to graduate school, but how do you compare the success of a scientist to an art history major to a psychologist to a political scientist? It's not like we all graduated from law school and are competing for jobs with the same firm.