"crawl on your belly in the dust and dung while craving my forgiveness"

This, I believe, is what employees who have failed in some small way to come up to the required standards and expectations must do for Mistress Penelope and Master Winston in order to continue in service at Rutledge Manor.

Those who have failed in more significant ways, of course are sacked! In former times they'd have been flayed alive or beheaded, but various legal restrictions have been placed on the gentry in the wake of troublesome social movements. One hopes that the advance of corporate globalization will soon restore the working classes to their proper place of unquestioning servitude...