dummy background task?

[Brian Bennings]

While reviewing a WS workflow that was setup for us in our 4.5b system, I have
come across several occurances of a dummy background task.  This background task
calls a method that consists of only a single comment line.
 
"Run background dummy to interrupt dialog processing"
 
What would be the purpose of something like this?  Is this a standard practice?
 
Thanks,
Brian