This happens a lot in workplaces when some HR perk is announced, people complain that they worry that someone will take unfair advantage of the new policy and it is implied that complainer's work will be negatively impacted by other people doing so.
However, there is no proof that this situation actually will occur. Is there an idiom or phrase to describe this kind of paranoia or demand for additional rules?
The closest I can think of is "tilting at windmills". Google and SO mostly find results where the problem is actually a benefit, or where a proposed fix doesn't address the actual problem. But what about when the problem is imaginary?
This is different from An idiom meaning someone's doing something useless and has no result at the end, where they look for a phrase about actually doing something that yields no result, whereas in this case, people are perceiving something that doesn't exist and trying to make a "solution" which would actually affect others.
Best Answer
A couple of common phrases for trying to solve an imaginary problem are
and
Another phrase that might fit your scenario is