Just because two queries generate the same results does not mean they'll have the same execution plan, but yes we would need to see more details about what you're doing....

My first job out of college I was asked to either explain or create an ERD, I think the point was mostly to demonstrate that I had some basic idea...

Just put an ISNULL around Type

Select Count(t.TicketID) AS [Number of Tickets], ISNULL(T.Type, 'Order')
From Tickets T
Group by ISNULL(T.Type, 'Order')

In general never assume that SQL server will return a consistent order without an explicit order by.  Even if the system view is consistently returning in a specific order that...

What are the downstream sources?  Are there multiple downstreams that would be treating the staging data as a copy of the source data?  Is this staging for a data warehouse?...

Yeah that's a pretty crummy way to start(and end) your first job.  It was refreshing to remember being that new to the industry, if someone handed me a document and...

Do you have duplicate account numbers in the adjuster table?

Check this and see what comes back, if you are getting anything back your second query will end up...

No, the first one will update the reclocat table regardless of whether this criteria is met, it.active = 1 and it.submitted = 1 and year(t.tabdate) > 1901

Well any role is easy if you don't care about the quality of your work.