Adding a status column also lets you set the task to 'in progress' straight after it's been selected, reducing the window during which another thread could try and run the task only to be rolled back when the final delete/update fails.
That code (actually, a perl version of it) is being used for a telco internal provisioning system. There is never any user feedback, and it could potentially take hundreds of tasks a minute - maybe more. Still, I like the idea of keeping some history - thanks for the input!
