@Privatestate1 I feel very lucky, as I can be more present ie sneak off for a school event in the afternoon if I’ve got no calls.
In the context, I seriously hope that you didn't mean that to sound like it does. I hope you mean that you log out and your workplace are aware that these are not working hours, and that you make up the time elsewhere. I also work from home mostly, and if I have something on in the day that is personal, I do have the flexibility to go do it (with my managers knowledge, although in all honesty I doubt he remembers what I say), but there is no "sneaking" and the time is made up. The last person I know who was "sneaking" is now a former employee.
But on the general issues, I did respond earlier today on the other thread, but I do wonder, as a manager myself but also an active union rep, what else is going on. Because the information here is the OP's side of the story, and there are always at least two sides. Based on the OP's version, they appear to be somewhat unrealistic about how much time they can be absent from the workplace without it causing concerns. But with my manager hat on, having managed similar situations, I suspect there is more to it than we know. I'd lay bets the productivity of the OP is being monitored - everyone always thinks that if they "look busy" managers don't notice things, that they are doing a great job because (so far) nobody has pulled them up on it. But my experience is that once I start looking at one thing, it's like a lose thread - the entire jumper starts unravelling and I find more things than I can ignore.
So the person who nipped out every now and then during working hours, not a big thing if every piece of work I expect to see is done, and done in a timely fashion to a good enough (or better) standard. But if I am, for example, already wondering why they are struggling to manage their work, or don't seem terribly productive, or make mistakes that I don't expect them to, and then I find out that they are doing the school run for X hours, making lunch, making tea, nipping to the chemist/the supermarket... it becomes a snowball.
In my experience the vast majority of people work really well from home and I support it wherever practical. But I do think that Covid did WFH no favours, because many of us managers were exceedingly flexible and bent or broke rules to help people through that period. But people have then become so used to being able to do whatever they want, that they expect that version of WFH to continue. They fail to appreciate that in working from home the emphasis is on working. It isn't a majority, but it is a substantial enough minority to cause employers and managers concern, and it often fuels the pressures for everyone to return to the office because rules have to be fair and consistent. In many roles, like the ones that are done in my team, the work is not easily quantifiable - I can't measure how many pieces of paper get produced or how many telephone calls are made - so it can take quite some time to identify there is a problem. On one occasion an entire team were individually "covering up" problems with a member of staff because they each thought that (a) she was struggling and (b) thought she was doing work for someone else. It was only when one set of incidents alerted me to the fact that something was off and I asked each person in the team what their take was that it came to light that she was literally doing less than a couple of hours actual work a week! I would have spotted that in an instance in the office, as would the other members of the team.