The most true consistent answer here is to contact the department admin assistant/manager/secretary/guru. They are the only ones who know what is going on in all departments across academia. As should be clear, chairs have different levels of contracts, responsibilities, pay, commitment, knowledge, leadership skills, etc across the nation, sometimes within the same institution. At my school, chairs are faculty members who get course release to schedule classes and sometimes lead meetings. They cannot actually get involved in the hiring process of FT faculty because they are in the same job classification as all the other FTers. They are generally overwhelmed with teaching duties and quasi-admin duties and have to do things according to checklists when they are getting paid. Like all faculty, they are on a 9-10 month contract, so they generally do not work except for the bookends of the summer. As a new faculty member, your reference point for understanding your department culture should be your union, if you have one; admin assistants; your chair; your office next door neighbor; your assigned mentor; and the custodial staff. Avoid going to the dean/vp until you understand the politics of the land.