"is usually written by an over worked engineer"
I'm in this post and I don't like it.
But really these scada systems are rarely well defined by the time implementation happens. Often the architect has a great plan, but by the time it's passed to a manager, a non-software engineer, to the product engineer to the automation team to the contractor the end result is "X data is pushed in With Y form and we use either a,b,or c date time stamp any nobody knows"
If you're within probably 1.5 hours of the Minneapolis/st. Paul you're probably among sane folk, maybe within 30 of Duluth as well, but if you're out in the boonies and such you might be finding people who, while polite, might be flying a trump flag and think "city/colored folk" are the problem.